


Ficbits & Beginnings

by Para



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 01:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5072329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Para/pseuds/Para
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of being eternally tempted to start a new story, I'm just going to put all my various ideas and pieces here.  I may or may not eventually pick out and continue any of them; in the meantime (and for that matter, even if/when I do continue some) they're all available should anyone want to borrow the ideas to adapt or continue.  I am gleeful to see other peoples' versions of my ideas, so just toss me a link so I can read and I'll be happy.</p><p>Some chapters will be written parts of fics; some will probably just be descriptions of ideas.  Characters, other tags, and warnings will be added as chapters are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jenka Has A Nose!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The basic idea here is that Jenka, while threatening Agatha in Zumzum, notices that that's a _Heterodyne_ she's holding up to her face and threatening. This is not precisely what jägers are supposed to be doing, even if the Heterodyne is defending a town that clearly doesn't deserve it.
> 
> Alternate versions: Jenka realizes because the boys yell at her to leave the Heterodyne alone you idiot/use your nose, or (different start, same effect on Agatha's journey) rather than staring/grinning maniacally (in Dimo's case), the boys get themselves down from the ropes before the play even starts and go to Agatha, thinking she hasn't noticed them and they need to tell her she's a Heterodyne (Oggie has those nice presumably sharp claws on his feet and never wears shoes; I'm assuming he could manage to reach and at least damage the ropes on one of the other boys' hands enough for them to get loose, if not cut through them entirely).

Death rays were wonderful things, Agatha had decided some time ago. They were powerful, and looked nice, and no one could design a clank to brush them off like how some clanks could resist electricity or heat.

Death rays only worked if they hit. That hadn't seemed like quite so big an issue to Agatha until the construct attacking Zumzum dodged it. Even the bear disappeared, and the ray splattered harmlessly on stone.

"What? But—where did it—"

And how, for that matter? The construct on the bear could be something a spark made to move fast, but a bear! A bear shouldn't be able to dodge—

A loud smash came from behind Agatha, and she knew before she whirled that the wagon she'd just left had been crushed. "No!" By the bear, it turned out. The circus couldn't afford that! And Othar had still been in there, Agatha wanted him gone but she didn't want him _dead_!

She didn't have a chance to respond to try to shoot the bear again; her arm had barely started to lift before Agatha found herself turned around by the shoulder, and a hand smacked her death ray onto the ground. "Ahh!" She didn't see what happened to it; heard it crackle as the hand that had knocked it down pulled hers up until she was facing the construct, fingers laced with hers and bending them back painfully.

"Und now," an unexpectedly feminine voice growled, "ve see vot happen to clever little hand… vot…."

The voice trailed off; Agatha could see enough of the construct's face to see her eyes widen. She didn't move for an instant, and Agatha didn't dare to.

The construct let her go as fast as dropping hot iron, had backed up a step and sunk down before Agatha was sure of her balance again. "Füst! Out!" The construct's voice snapped out over the fight before Agatha realized she was kneeling.

Agatha couldn't begin to guess what was going on, but if the construct had stopped—she turned, and the bear had turned around too, was racing back the way it had come, bowling over people in its way but not really attacking anyone. Agatha turned back to stare at the construct, trying to guess.

An arrow landed in the construct's back; sunk through whatever layers she was wearing and stayed. No, what _idiot_ had done that, whatever had stopped her attacking now she'd start again, no—

She didn't. The construct just took it; shuddered, maybe, it was hard to tell under the cape, but she stayed still and quiet. Agatha could see the cloth around the arrow starting to become damp; it had to be from blood.

She couldn't guess why the construct had stopped attacking, or why she didn't start again when hit, but another attack still might make her start again. "Stop fighting!" Agatha's voice rose over the (somewhat quieter, now that the bear was gone) noise, loud and shrill. She gulped down air, and did her best to recreate the commanding voice she'd used onstage as Lucrezia. " _Everyone stop fighting!_ "

From what Agatha could see, about a quarter of the townspeople and most of the circus members stopped immediately at her yell; the rest followed. And then it was still and Agatha had a... well, a construct of some sort... that had attacked the town kneeling in front of her, the entire town and circus staring at her, and no idea what to do about it.

Agatha swallowed again, but made sure to use a normal voice when she turned back to the construct. "Why did you stop attacking? Not that I mind! Actually, why did you attack to begin with, what do we have to do so you _don't_ attack again?"

The construct finally moved, turning her head in order to glare in the direction of the hanging jägers. "I vos comink to get those _eediots_ out. The guards attacked me."

"What—really?" Agatha turned without thinking to look for guards. "Of all the stupid things—why would you do _that_?" Several townspeople looked vaguely guilty, but no one answered, so Agatha turned back to the construct. "So, if someone lets the jägers down—or lets you get them down—you'll go, and you won't attack anyone? And they won't, either?"

The construct went back to staring at the ground. Her shoulders seemed to hunch in a little, too. "Ve vill do vhatever you say, Mistress."

"Er—" Agatha was suddenly, clearly missing something here, and not entirely sure she wanted to know what it was. "You will?"

"Yez."

"Why?"

The construct looked up again, but at Agatha this time. Agatha couldn't see much of her face to read her expression, but she seemed calm. "You are a Heterodyne. All jägers vill do vhat you say."

The town center hadn't been loud to begin with. Agatha got the feeling it would have just fallen silent anyway, if it hadn't been already. She could certainly feel the stares.

Agatha's throat was suddenly dry. She had to swallow before she could say anything. "That was supposed to be a secret."

The jäger looked—Agatha still couldn't see enough of her expression to be sure. Confused? Startled? Guilty? Some of them all, maybe? "But— _vhy_?"

Agatha sighed, and ran a hand over her face. Well, it certainly wasn't a secret _now_ , she supposed it didn't matter what else the entire town and circus knew. "Because the Baron was trying to catch me and—er, I don't know what, actually, but he wanted to lock up Ad—er, Punch and Judy and I just for knowing who I was, and I know he experiments on the sparks he keeps, so—I'd rather not be caught again even if I was just a normal spark." She ran a hand over her face again as whispers broke out behind her, then through her hair, and tugged it out when it got caught in the braid. "You can stand up, by the way," she told the jäger. The jäger did, slowly, like she was trying not to move the wrong way. "What's your name? And are you going to do anything about that arrow?"

"I am Jenka." Jenka apparently chose to answer Agatha's second question by reaching back and pulling the arrow out with a wince, then dropping it on the ground. Well, if that was all she thought she needed to do, Agatha certainly didn't know enough to argue.

Krosp was by Agatha's foot; she wasn't sure if he'd been there already or just appeared. He looked worried, eyes narrow and ears swiveling. "Agatha, we need to leave. Now."

"Right." They couldn't stay with the circus, they _definitely_ couldn't stay in the town—someone would tell the Baron she was still alive soon, and Agatha _couldn't_ be here when he heard. Escape would be impossible a second time; she only hoped Lilith was right and Castle Heterodyne could change that. She looked back at Jenka. "You said you'll do what I say. Is there anything else you're supposed to be doing?"

"Findink you." Agatha was pretty sure that was humor in Jenka's voice. "Iz done."

"Right. Good. You're coming with me, then." She waved at the hanging jägers, who—now that she looked—all looked actually _giddy_. Agatha had not expected that expression on jägers. "Go get them down and wait for me, I need to pack."

Jenka moved toward the gallows, and Agatha turned to look for Master Payne. Instead, she saw Zumzum's Mayor, hurrying toward the gallows with a distressed expression, calling "no, you can't, we have a _bet_!"

Agatha was not yet completely out of patience, but she certainly didn't have any left for _that_. "Oh shut _up_ ," she snapped at him. "There are a lot more important things than your stupid bet right now! Just give everyone back their money, and next time you find jägers, send them to me instead of trying to hang them!"

The mayor stopped still, but didn't answer. Nor did anyone else, and Agatha still couldn't see Master Payne, so she stalked off to her wagon—what had been her wagon, Krosp at her heels.

Krosp vanished as soon as she got to the wagon. Agatha had changed back into normal clothes and almost finished packing by the time Master Payne knocked on the door, and hovered nervously in the doorway when she snapped to come in. Agatha stopped what she was doing, took a deep breath, and tried to calm down as much as she could before saying anything. "Master Payne—I'm really sorry, I know this puts you all in danger now, I didn't mean to, I—" Apologies wouldn't help. Repeated apologies were even more useless. "It'll just take me a minute to finish packing and then I'll go, sir."

Master Payne cleared his throat. "I… am sorry we cannot help you more, but you are correct. You would be too easily found with us." Agatha looked up, startled, and a small smile made its way onto his face, even if the rest of it still looked grim. "The Empire won't be happy with us, but—well, we knew taking you on was risky, and we did it anyway because we owed you. You're a good person, Miss… Heterodyne." He coughed. "Anyway, everyone will see you leaving without us now. That will help, we won't be much use to the Empire if you're not with us. I wanted to wish you luck in the Wastelands."

"Oh! I… um, thank you," Agatha said. Master Payne hovered for another second before nodding and backing out of the wagon.

It really did only take another minute to finish packing; there wasn't much to pack. The pack felt heavy anyway when Agatha pulled it on, and picked up her remaining death ray. Maybe she could get the pieces of the other, Jenka couldn't have done _too_ much damage just by stepping on it. She ought to be able to make something useful from it still.

Krosp dropped onto Agatha's pack as soon as she stepped out of the wagon and she flailed, almost knocking him in the head with the death ray before he hissed at her to "stop that!"

She did, but turned her head to glare back at him. "Well, don't startle me like that! I didn't know it was you."

"Who else would it be?" Krosp asked. Agatha didn't have an answer, so she just turned back ahead and finished making her way down the wagon's stairs. "Head for the West gate."

"But I want to go—"

"Yes, yes. Go to the West gate."

Well, being seen going a different way than she actually wanted to travel wouldn't hurt. Agatha went toward the West gate.

The jägers fell in step around her before she'd gotten out of the wagons, Jenka walking fairly calmly and the other three all but bouncing on their toes. They also seemed to have acquired hats and weapons since being let down, which Agatha decided not to wonder about. If they'd belonged to the jägers to begin with, fine; the hats certainly seemed to match their outfits. If not, weapons were going to be useful soon, and it wasn't like Agatha could be in _more_ trouble with the Empire than she already was.

As it turned out, the circus had gathered by the West gate, along with a lot of the townspeople. Pix ran up to Agatha first, hugging her before Agatha could react (the jägers eyed her, but fortunately didn't do anything else) and crying. "Be safe, Agatha, it's dangerous out there!"

"I will." Agatha hoped she would. She tried to smile more confidently than she felt. "And I'm a Heterodyne, you ought to know what that means if anyone does, Pix."

Agatha doubted she was very convincing, but Pix give her a watery smile anyway. "Nothing in the Wastelands is as bad as the exploding sonic grasshoppers." She sounded like she really wanted to believe it.

Agatha passed through most of the rest of the circus with similar exchanges, except for Master Payne. He was the only one to ask, "Say, Agatha, who are your parents?"

"Bill and Lucrezia." Agatha was careful not to giggle at his shock. "But I was raised by Punch and Judy in Beetleburg. They called themselves Adam and Lilith Clay."

"Oh. My." He blinked rapidly before taking her hand and shaking it, and she found a coin in it when he let go. "For luck," he said. "Thank you. And," he caught her eyes, expression just a touch too genuine for Agatha to believe it, "if you want to escape the Empire, I'd suggest you head for Paris, and maybe after that for England. The Empire won't be able to touch you either of those places."

Agatha smiled, and pocketed the coin. She doubted it was lucky—doubted there was such a thing as luck—but it wouldn't hurt. "Thank you."

There were only a few more exchanges, and then Zeetha was last, standing just inside the gate. She was carrying a pack too, larger than Agatha's. Agatha stopped. "Zeetha—"

Zeetha smiled. "I'm coming too, of course."

"But—" Your friends, your boyfriend, your travels, your entire life—? Agatha couldn't find the words, but Zeetha had spend years with the Circus. Surely she couldn't just leave it all behind? Not for Agatha, not to go wandering through the Wastelands with hardly any protection.

Zeetha apparently thought she could. There was a little sadness in her smile, but she tapped Agatha's nose like she had to wake her up the first morning of training. "You are my zumil. I am your kolee. Until your training is complete I go where you go."

"But—"

"No buts. I go where you go." Zeetha fell in beside Agatha, tugged subtly on her arm to get her walking again, and apparently that was that.

They waved, of course; sound rose from the circus and townspeople behind them, a mix of cheers and cries and calls of _good luck, good luck, we'll miss you!_ until they were almost out of hearing, and the gate closed behind them with a thud.

Jenka gave a quiet snort. "They learn."

Agatha decided not to question that either. She stopped walking, and turned to the jägers. "I'm going to Mechanicsburg. Can you get me there?"

"Ho yez." The green jäger's grin wasn't quite as manic as it had been when he was hanging and staring at Agatha, but it was still far too wide not to look disturbing on an otherwise mostly humanoid face. "Iz goot hyu iz goink home."

"Lilith—Judy," Agatha corrected herself, "told me that Castle Heterodyne would help me, so that's where I'm going."

"Der Kestle iz… damaged, now," the green jäger said, abruptly serious and not grinning at all. "Eet vill help, bot eet kent do efferytink dot eet should."

Agatha had to take a second to figure out what the jäger was actually saying. "Well, I should be able to fix it, right?"

The jäger shrugged. "Iz schpark stuff. Hy dunno vhy not."

"You'll see when you get there," Zeetha said. "No point worrying now."

"Right." Agatha took a breath, and shrugged her shoulders to adjust the pack. "Krosp, get off, you can walk." He grumbled, but jumped down while Agatha looked at the jägers. "You know how to travel in the Wastelands, right?" They nodded, with varying degrees of exaggeration. "Then you get to lead for now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jenka will, of course, either detour to pick up Füst, or more likely whistle or something so he knows to come find her. From there, adventure through the Wastelands! And, notably, _not_ Sturmhalten, or at least not without attracting the same kind of attention if they do go through. Though they may attract attention from the Baron's patrols instead, considering the likelihood of Agatha collecting parts as she goes until she can build some sort of giant, far too heavily armed transport clank.


	2. Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, Rebellious Teenager Extraordinaire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so Gil probably wouldn't technically be a rebellious _teenager_ in this one, but close enough! How could I resist that title?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, this one is just a summary of thoughts, rather than a fic piece. Someday!

Gil complains to Wooster about how no one and especially not his father will listen to him or take him seriously after the "I'll arrange your marriage" conversation, and Wooster suggests that usually parents realize their children have valid thoughts of their own after said child rebels a bit. (He is a spy after all, instigating a little bit of friction between the Empire's ruler and heir under the guise of helping a friend seems like the sort of thing he'd be encouraged to do.) So when Agatha demands to be let off of Castle Wulfenbach post-hive engine battle, rather than continue insisting they get married, Gil decides that he's just going to go with her and start adventuring like his father and the Heterodyne boys did. Adam and Lilith then walk in on Gil and Agatha planning how to sneak out, so they don't knock Gil out, and he's able to help them sneak off of the castle without a big fight. (He also manages to convince Klaus to let him go adventuring with his "assistant/sidekick," mostly because he's built a way to contact Klaus immediately should he get in over his head, and he promises to stay in the Empire where Klaus has already removed all the serious threats, and a reputation as a hero is certainly not going to hurt the stability of the empire. Also, possibly, Klaus might want to send him on various specific "adventures" as tests, or etc; basically whatever justification is needed for Klaus to not immediately hunt them all down and drag Gil back.)

This leads to Agatha, Gil, Krosp, Adam and Lilith all joining the circus, because I so want to see the circus members' faces as they slowly, collectively realize that they've been traveling with Punch and Judy who are distinctly Not Pleased by their portrayal, Bill's daughter, and the Baron's son. And I really want to see Tarvek's face when a few hours after kidnapping Agatha, Gil shows up at the door in full hero mode threatening to summon the Baron if Tarvek doesn't produce Agatha unharmed _right this instant_. Unfortunately I do not see this fic ending well for Tarvek at all seeing as he'd probably never have the chance to get out of being the enemy, but hey, maybe he could be smart enough to realize he should just cooperate with Gil and help him get Agatha out of there.... And then we'd probably have actual Anevka with Agatha's voice and whatever plans she originally had, but the Baron/Empire aware that something is going on if not exactly what, and no Lucrezia (yet).

I'm also thinking, just for the sake of balance and hilarity, that Gil would probably be the _worst_ actor and immediately forbidden from going on stage ever. He might start learning magic from Master Payne instead, which could be a useful plot point eventually.


	3. Several Short Ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As said; summaries of several ideas that only get a few lines each.

**Locket**   
Now being written [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5086984) by [lilithqueen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithqueen/pseuds/lilithqueen)

Agatha's locket isn't stolen. Maybe Moloch manages to stop Omar, maybe they picked a different alley to sit in, maybe Agatha manages to run, whatever. Lilith and Adam are able to pick up and move to a small town as planned when Klaus takes over Beetleburg. Of course Agatha still smells good, so every jager that wanders through flirts with her, and she eventually ends up dating one of them. I am really terribly sad that jagers probably don't care much about the ethics of relationships in the workplace, because I really want to see a jager approaching the generals to ask about the policy on accidentally dating the Heterodyne.

**Tarvek's Plan**

Or at least, Tarvek's plan for dealing with Lucrezia. It works, more or less, and he escapes Sturmhalten with Lucrezia-in-Agatha. He then has to spend the next several months attempting to limit the damage she does, learn about her work, and figure out how to free Agatha without getting caught. I'm sure that will be so very much fun for him.

**Agatha is Informed**

Beetle and/or Adam and Lilith actually tell Agatha things as she grows up, so she grows up believing Klaus is an agent of the Other, determined to fight him, and aware enough to hide from him. I honestly am not sure how this could end up going anywhere good, but I still want to see what happens, and it seems like such a plausible AU.

**Zeetha Finds Klaus**

Zeetha finds Klaus early on in her travels around Europa. This could go two different ways, because she could equally easily stick around Klaus and act as his mobile conscience to hit him upside the head any time he starts going too far, or skip merrily off to Paris to ambush Gil. You have a sister, you're a prince, and it's time to begin your Skifandran prince training, little brother! "Skifandran prince training" could take the form of chasing Gil with sticks like training Agatha, or putting Gil in fancy clothes and trying to make him practice being elegant and gracious. Either way I'm sure Tarvek will be delighted to witness it.

**Lars Survives**

And then Lars sticks around while the rest of the circus goes to England, and probably proceeds to not have much impact on the plot, but may ruin Gil's and Tarvek's chances at a relationship, due to Agatha actually having a possible boyfriend who hadn't kidnapped her, threatened her, ordered her to marry him, or gone over her head in an attempt to protect her, and who can describe why he likes her without including "the power of the Heterodyne name."

**Tarvek's Great Idea**

Child!Tarvek is determined to protect Gil on Castle Wulfenbach, but even keeping Gil as his best employee isn't _perfectly_ safe. So what would be better? Why, Tarvek will just arrange for Gil to marry his sister! Gil's sure to be a strong spark so that will be acceptable, and then he'll be royalty, or as good as! Of course, first that means Tarvek needs to teach Gil to _act_ like royalty, manners, fashion and all....

**Gray Area**

Gil never finds the family records vault, or maybe they can't get in, or maybe they just don't get caught. However it happens, Tarvek isn't sent home from Castle Wulfenbach, until he's called home years later because his older sister is dying. Of course, by then he's grown up with Von Pinn and the Baron's morals as models, and no time to adjust to thinking of the wasps and killing girls to summon Lucrezia as normal things, so once he figures out what happened to his sister he's horrified. But that still leaves the question of what to do about it....

I can see this going a _lot_ of different ways, and mostly I'm really fascinated by the idea of a Tarvek who still thinks the Baron is an usurper, still wants him taken out, but also is absolutely horrified by what his family and especially his father has been doing, and has to negotiate between those. Maybe he'll try being sneaky and taking over Sturmhalten or the conspiracy, maybe he'll go to the Baron, maybe he'll just ask Gil for help, maybe he'll ship Anevka off to the Great Hospital to save her and there will be fallout from that, I don't know but I'd really like to see.


	4. Heterodyne Morality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An AU in which Saturn took the time to talk to his sons about the morals their mother was trying to teach them, by which I mean pick them apart and mock them as naive and beneath the Heterodynes. Bill and Barry grow up pretty typical if moderate Heterodynes, which leads to their _mother_ being the one to decide she has to kill them, along with their father. She succeeds in killing Saturn, but not the boys. (I'm thinking she used a more effective poison on Saturn, and a slower, less painful one that the boys were able to treat themselves for in time. She didn't want to _hurt_ them.) This event, whether due to damage from the poison or just feeling betrayed, leads to the boys becoming some of the worst and cruelest Heterodynes.
> 
> Lucrezia still marries Bill, but she's already occupied with the evil things the Heterodynes are doing, so no Other. She probably tosses Klaus through a portal to Skifander as a way of testing it. Events in Skifander go roughly as in canon, but when Klaus gets back his home was destroyed by the Heterodynes, so he allies with everyone working against them: most notably, the Sturmvoraus family and the Knights of Jove. Gil and Tarvek grow up as friends. Agatha grows up evil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First: this gets **warnings**. Torture is talked about/planned, and only barely misses being on screen. Also Agatha flirts with Gil and Tarvek while they're being held by the jägers that just beat them and took over Tarvek's castle, so that falls somewhere in the sexual harassment-assault range. (I am bad at the exact line on those, but definitely one of them.)
> 
> Saturn in this fic is Klaus Barry in canon; Elisa is Saturn and Agatha's younger sister. Don't ask me to explain why Agatha is still named Agatha.

Gil hadn’t actually been looking for Tarvek; since the invasion broke into the castle he hadn’t had time for much thought beyond the immediate enemy in front of him, and had been startled to run out of enemies. Or at least, enemies that could see him; before the castle walls had come down he’d been able to see what looked like the full Heterodyne army attacking it, and he could still hear the fighting. The few dozen assorted monsters and soldiers he’d managed to kill probably hadn’t even made a dent.

Which made it all the more important that he take advantage of being (however briefly) out of the enemy’s sight. Gil slung his current death ray (stolen off of a soldier he’d killed, and remarkably well-made to have lasted this long despite the whining that preceded every shot and should have meant it was well on its way to exploding) over his shoulder and scrambled into one of the tunnels that riddled the walls of Sturmhalten’s castle.

The ledge he came out on was hardly invisible, but it was designed to look uninteresting and much too small to properly hold a person. The deception may have worked, as he was able to peer over the edge at the fight below without anyone reacting. Or that could have been because of the fight going on below.

Tarvek was fighting spectacularly; weaving between jägers and managing to dodge most of their attacks, while getting in a decent number of his own. Unfortunately he was fighting jägers; they seemed to be either unaffected or actually encouraged by what damage he managed to do, and didn’t seem to be at all worn down by the last ten hours of fighting. Even Gil was getting worn out, and he had the advantage of his father’s endurance-enhancement procedures. Tarvek looked like he was barely on his feet, with sweat running down his face and plastering his hair to his skin.

“Oh come now, don’t tell me he’s giving you that much trouble! Haven’t you caught him yet?”

Gil’s eyes snapped down the hall toward the cheerful shout. It had come from a woman with long, red-gold hair, wearing a green dress and makeup that seemed equally out of place on a battlefield. Even if that battlefield was in the castle of fashion. A squad of soldiers—altered somehow, but not jägers—were jogging away from her, in the opposite direction of Tarvek.

That had to be the Heterodyne girl. Useful. As soon as he realized, Gil twisted to aim the death ray at her. It wouldn’t be quite as good as killing, say, her brother who was the actual heir, or the Lord Heterodyne, but it would definitely distract the jägers. And any fewer Heterodynes in the world would only improve it. The death ray whined—the fight should cover that, jägers weren’t exactly quiet fighters—

One tackled the girl out of the way of Gil’s shot anyway and he cursed, wiggling forward to get a better angle. Stealth was certainly not an option now—

“You idiot, _run_!” Gil glanced over in time to see Tarvek go down beneath another jäger, and manage to twist enough to slam a knife into the jäger’s side. Both of them were buried beneath a pile of other jägers.

Gil let his lips curl into a snarl, and searched for the Heterodyne girl. Maybe if he _injured_ her they’d—

“Hy’ll take _dot_.” The death ray was jerked abruptly up. Gil hung on, but rather than getting to keep it, found himself hanging over the edge of the ledge he’d been on. (The beam of the death ray shot into the ceiling, and through it.) The jäger holding the death ray—and by association Gil—was grinning malevolently, apparently unbothered by the weight. Gil kicked at him. He caught the jäger in the gut, but the only reaction he received was the grin becoming wider and, possibly, anticipatory. The jäger shrugged casually. “Suit hyuself.” He let go.

The fall wouldn’t have been bad; it was only about four meters, and Gil had twisted to land before he was halfway down. But there were jägers waiting, and one leapt to tackle Gil out of the air. Claws dug into his side and stomach—were those _teeth_ in his back? Not the time—the death ray went skipping away across the floor as Gil was slammed into it. He twisted, ignoring the way claws and teeth ripped at his flesh to try and hit the jäger, if he could get this one off of him—

Another jäger landed on him, pinning his arms against the floor, and digging more claws into them. The next slammed his face into the floor—Gil was pretty sure his nose was broken, certainly bleeding—and he couldn’t see to count the rest. Maybe if he counted the claws, since they all seemed to be determined to claw him to ribbons….

“Hold him! Do _not_ kill him!” The Heterodyne girl’s voice cut sharply through the remaining noise. Gil supposed he might be supposed to be grateful since she’d probably saved his life, but he was busy resenting her existence. And especially that of her jägers. “I want them both alive until I know for certain who they are. Get them up so I can see them both.”

“Mistress—”

There was an exasperated sigh. “Yes, Stosh, and tie them.”

The jägers shifted, and Gil’s arms were yanked behind him. His wrists were tied tightly; not enough to do long term damage very quickly, but he’d have to find a way to get the rope off before it did, and it was already painful. As soon as that was done he was hauled up onto his feet. Gil was pretty sure the jägers were trying to yank his arms out in the process.

Tarvek was nearby, still on the floor. Apparently the jägers didn’t want to work on both of them at once, since they were just pulling Tarvek’s arms behind him. He at least didn’t seem to have more than shallow injuries, though he was panting harshly for breath and letting them move him; Gil couldn’t tell if he was actually that exhausted, pretending to be so that the Heterodyne would underestimate him, or taking advantage of already being caught to rest as much as he could. Probably all three. Damn sneaky Sturmvorauses. Not that it had helped—

The jägers definitely were going out of their way to be rough with Gil; once Tarvek was standing they had him turn, and hauled Gil around to face the same way, two jägers tugging him to different sides at entirely different rates. He growled at them under his breath.

Tarvek glanced over to frown at him, looking irritated. Was he actually trying to manipulate his way out of this? Gil didn’t think they were getting away from _thirty jägers and a Heterodyne_. Subtlety was really lost on that lot, and this entire battle had been lost as soon as the Hetereodyne army appeared anyway. They should have all run. (Not that Gil been any more willing to do that than his father was when it was suggested at the time. Only Anevka had, with their notes and best servants, frowning all the while.) Whatever Tarvek was planning could hardly get them into worse trouble though, so Gil subsided.

The Heterodyne girl was turning the death ray over in her hands, peering at the sides. She examined the sides of the barrel, then the handle, and turned to fire it casually into the wall. She nodded, apparently satisfied, and slung it over her shoulder. “From the third absorbed division, I think. Maybe the fourth, if it’s been damaged, but it doesn’t look too banged up so I don’t think so.”

One of the jägers—not holding Gil or Tarvek, but standing behind them so he couldn’t see which—muttered, “Hy _said_ dey vos a bad idea. Dey hain’t _loyal_.”

The Heterodyne girl rolled her eyes, but was smiling fondly. It was even more disconcertingly out of place on her than the fine dress and elaborate makeup in the battle. “No one is loyal like you are. Anyway, I don’t think they turned traitor; if they had, one of _them_ would have been using it to shoot at me. He probably just killed them and stole it.”

“Ho, dot’s hokay, den.”

“Quite.” The topic done, the Heterodyne girl shifted her attention to Gil—no, to Tarvek. She stepped forwards to peer at him, leaning in and standing close enough that Tarvek actually leaned slightly away, expression a mix of suspicion and fear. Gil couldn’t tell how much of it was faked. He glared, but no one seemed to notice. The Heterodyne girl stared for a moment before straightening, giving Tarvek slightly more space. “So, Tarvek, are _you_ the Smoke Knight’s Storm King?”

Tarvek started, his eyes widening and face turning pale. Gil suspected it wasn’t faked.

The Hetereodyne girl gave Tarvek a satisfied smile that would have been charming had she _not been a Heterodyne_. She really needed to stop looking like a normal person. “Thought so. Okay, I’m keeping him.” She directed the last statement to the jägers, waving casually at Tarvek. “Take him to… oh, the vented glass wagon, if it’s not full. And I want at least ten of your guarding him.”

Several of the jägers were frowning, giving the Heterodyne girl doubtful looks, or eyeing Tarvek with sudden hostility. One spoke up. “Hy dun tink—Mistress, he’s sort of important to de pipple dot vant to keel de Hetereodynes, vit de leegends und all. Vhy dun ve chust keel him?”

The Heterodyne girl beamed, spreading her arms in a grand gesture. “Why, because of the legends!” She was, abruptly, leaning in toward Tarvek again, smile gone predatory. “ _All_ the Storm King legends say he married a Hetereodyne girl to make his empire, and it fell apart when she left him. And, why, _I_ am a Hetereodyne girl.” She giggled, and reached out to tap Tarvek’s nose with a finger. He looked thoroughly unnerved. “But instead of _him_ rescuing _me_ , _I_ am going to take _him_. That should be _much_ more fun to watch than just destroying the legend the normal way. They could always come up with a new Storm King, after all.” She rocked back on her heels, looking thoroughly pleased with herself, and looked Tarvek up and down. “Besides, he’s cute. Keeping him will be _fun_.”

…Well, Tarvek certainly wasn’t _pale_ anymore. He was shooting Gil a look that seemed distinctly horrified, but he wasn’t pale.

The jägers relaxed, about half of them chuckling and a few letting out encouraging whoops. “Vell den! Dot makes vit de sense.”

“I think so.” The Heterodyne girl flashed the jägers a cheerful smile before turning to Gil. “Now, who are _you_?”

Gil glared at her and said nothing. She waited a moment before rolling her eyes. “Oh, you’re _ridiculous_. Well, that at least tells me that who you are is _important_ —”

“Wha—hey, no, I—I’m not—”

She ignored him and continued. “—and that I shouldn’t believe you. Hmm.” She eyed him for another moment before nodding firmly to herself, stepping closer and beginning to unbutton his jacket.

Gil squeaked. It was maybe not the most practical response. Nor was trying to jerk back, which only led the jägers holding his arms to twist them painfully. “What are you _doing_? Stop that!”

“Hoy, hyu dun tell de Mistress vot she does.” The jäger that said it was snickering, though. Gil ignored her.

The Heterodyne girl glanced up to smile at him, obviously amused. “I’m checking to see if you’re wearing any crests, or distinctive material.” Both her hands flattened against his chest. “Why? Is there something you’d _rather_ I… do?”

“I—er—” It did occur to Gil to say ‘let us go’ or ‘die painfully,’ but not in time for it to be a clever retort. He swallowed. “Um. Not… not particularly.”

“Oh.” She sighed, and returned to the buttons. “Well, I suppose I’ll just have to keep thinking of my own ideas.”

“Idiot,” Tarvek muttered. Gil thought that was entirely unfair. Tarvek hadn’t thought of anything clever to say when she was focused on him, and she hadn’t started _undressing_ him.

Getting his jacket off proved to be not the most practical idea while Gil’s hands were tied. Unfortunately (she didn’t solve the issue by untying him) or fortunately (she didn’t decide to do anything _else_ , either) the Heterodyne girl decided pulling it mostly off was close enough, and after inspecting his shirt far more closely than Gil could imagine having a point, she sighed and tugged the jacket back on for him. Gil was both relieved she stepped away rather than button it back up for him, and more bothered than was entirely justified that he couldn’t button it himself. “Well, let’s go meet Father. Bring him with us for now, we can figure out who he is later.” The Heterodyne girl eyed the claw punctures in Gil’s stomach, or at least the blood that had soaked through a good part of his shirt by that point. The look made Gil abruptly realize that they were beginning to ache. “And don’t hurt him. I want him in one piece.”

~---~---~---~---~

Lucrezia was pleased. Very, very pleased. Klaus had been fun, if not very serious; Wilhelm had barely been more than a sometimes-useful minion before he’d turned on her. Nonetheless, the sight of both of them caught (and in Klaus’s case, still struggling pointlessly) was lovely. Bill standing beside her, arm slung casually over her shoulder and expression telling Lucrezia—and likely everyone else nearby—that he was enjoying considering who to take to pieces first and how, only made it all better. And in the grand ballroom of Wilhelm’s own castle, too!

“Please—Lucrezia—I love you, you know I do—please—I can help you—” Making Wilhelm beg had never been exactly _difficult_ if he wasn’t in the midst of a particularly strong fugue, but it was still enjoyable. As was the furious look Klaus shot him. Klaus didn’t look surprised or betrayed, though; that was nice. He wasn’t stupid enough to think Wilhelm made a good ally, but had been desperate enough to try it anyway. Mm, lovely.

“Hm. Oh, let me see.” Lucrezia moved out from under Bill’s arm to get close to Wilhelm, fixing him with a cool look. “You _have_ been very helpful before, of course, until you betrayed me….”

“I—It was a mistake, please, Lucrezia, I was—I was upset that you married him, and then I was scared—you know how strong a Spark Klaus is, I couldn’t escape him, please—”

Lucrezia ignored him outwardly, though she savored his pleas and Klaus’s snarl alike. “And of course now that working against me _failed_ , you want to be on my side again. I see.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully as Wilhelm fell silent, and turned to Bill. “Dear, do you have a scalpel?”

He grinned and reached into a sleeve. Lucrezia wasn’t entirely sure how he managed to carry uncovered blades in his sleeves without being cut, but she hadn’t yet cut herself on them, so she hardly cared. And it was convenient. “I believe I do.”

The scalpel wasn’t exactly clean, but it would certainly be sharp. Lucrezia took it, and took the chance to catch Bill in a satisfactory kiss. “Oh, _lovely_. Now.” She turned back to Klaus and Wilhelm. “I suppose I could save you both for experiments, but it seems so much more _fun_ to just cut you up now. Ooh, and I could do the same thing to you both, so that the second will _know_ what I’ll do. That sounds lovely.” She tapped a finger against her lips in a show of thought. “But which of you first, oh dear. I’m not sure I can decide.”

“Please—!”

“Hoy, father!”

Wilhelm’s newest attempt at begging was cut off by Agatha’s entrance. Wilhelm could get repetitive quickly, so Lucrezia turned toward her daughter with a beaming smile. “Agatha! Did you enjoy yourself?”

Agatha was already throwing herself at Bill, who caught her and spun her in the air. She laughed and hugged him as he set her down, before turning to more calmly hug her mother. “Oh, I did!” She tapped the death ray that was slung over her side. “My idea for the harmonics identification system worked beautifully, I was able to identify which division this was taken from as soon as I fired it. The third absorbed division is probably at least broken,” she added more thoughtfully. “I don’t think he’d have managed to steal a death ray in quite this good condition without having taken out quite a few of them. Oh!” She spun, gesturing back at the doorway she’d come through. “And I found those two! I think I’m keeping them,” she added to Lucrezia in a loud, conspiratorial whisper. “They’re very cute.”

The jäger division that had been sent with Agatha seemed to have come through mostly uninjured. If Lucrezia guessed right, only one of them would need any work to heal. Remarkable, with how much fighting there had been; they must be some of the oldest. In the meantime, the least injured were holding two boys; a redhead who had probably looked very pristine before the battle, and now looked thoroughly unhappy, glaring resentfully around at the damage in the room. The other was a bit taller and broader with wild hair, and looked a moment short of trying to escape by biting the jägers holding him, had they been within reach. His jacket was, for some reason, unbuttoned. Well, Lucrezia certainly didn’t object to _that_. Though all the blood on his clothes was ruining the view a bit.

Hm. They looked a bit like—

“ _Gilgamesh_!”

“Hoy!”

Lucrezia turned back in time to see Klaus slammed back into place as a few more jägers piled onto him. He appeared to have very nearly thrown off the ones holding him. And snapped one of the chains, too. How exciting.

“Ooh,” Agatha said. “So _that’s_ why he wouldn’t say who he was.” She regarded the taller boy with an increasingly pleased smile. He looked even angrier.

“Oh, how wonderful.” Lucrezia stepped up to Agatha’s side and surveyed the boys. “And the other is Wilhelm’s?” She giggled, flicked the scalpel carefully off to the side, and grabbed Agatha’s hands enthusiastically. “And you’re keeping them? You have _magnificent_ taste. I do hope you’ll let me borrow them sometimes, at least for assistants. They should be such _fun_ to watch.”

Bill appeared to be the only one not enthusiastic about the situation. He was frowning slightly as he watched the boys. Lucrezia wasn’t sure why; neither was doing anything more interesting than glare. “Agatha, that may not be a good idea. You know what happened to your grandfather.”

“Oh, well, yes.” Agatha let go of Lucrezia’s hands to give Bill a cheerful smile. “I certainly don’t think I’m in love with them, though. I’m not going to _trust_ them. I just want to _keep_ them.”

“She _is_ an adult now, dear.” Which had rather less to do with Lucrezia’s support for the idea than her desire to have younger copies of Klaus and Wilhelm available to play with, but that didn’t mean her point was wrong.

“That’s true,” Bill agreed, “but—”

“If you _touch_ my _son_ —!” Klaus began to roar.

“Schot op, hyu.” The punch a jäger aimed at Klaus’s head silenced him momentarily, though it didn’t knock him out as it would have even Bill or Barry. Mm. There _was_ a reason Lucrezia had always liked Klaus.

Bill watched Klaus with a raised eyebrow, glanced at Lucrezia, and turned to Agatha with a smile. “Well, I suppose you can keep them for a while. We can decide what to do with them when you get bored later.”

Agatha squealed, and jumped toward Bill for another hug. He indulged her. “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome.” He patted her on the head. “Now, why don’t you take them to the wagons?”

“Oh, not yet.” Bill and Agatha turned toward Lucrezia with nearly-identical surprised expressions. She waved a hand toward where Wilhelm was cowering, and Klaus starting to struggle again as the disorientation from the jäger’s punch wore off. “Keeping their boys around while I deal with them sounds like _so_ much more fun than sending them away, don’t you think?”

Bill nodded, but Agatha frowned in confusion. She glanced between the boys she’d caught, their fathers, and the scalpel before blinking at Lucrezia in apparent surprise. “You’re going to kill them?”

“What? Father!” The taller boy was definitely Klaus’s son. Apparently foolishness was inheritable, or at least a tendency to earn jäger punches to the head by struggling. He wasn’t quite as resilient though, and slumped unconscious between their hands.

Lucrezia ignored him, and picked the scalpel delicately off the floor. “Of course. Klaus _is_ dangerous, after all. As is Wilhelm,” she added as an afterthought, “if only on occasion.”

“Well, yes.” Agatha still looked slightly confused. “That’s why you shouldn’t.” She nodded as though the statement could make itself logical, and gestured around the room. “This was fun, and I _know_ there hasn’t been a decently interesting enemy in years. They aren’t a danger to Mechanicsburg,” nothing could be, “and if you kill them now we’ll all be bored again.”

Lucrezia found herself sharing an incredulous look with Bill. “I suppose that’s true, but—”

Agatha nodded. “So you should just play with them now, and then send them off to the border, and later we’ll get to play with them _again_.”

“It would take time for them to build up the resources to be interesting again. By then we might have found someone interesting anyway.” Bill was beginning to look as if he was fighting the temptation. Lucrezia had to admit it was a decent idea.

“Ho! What’s this?”

Perhaps, Lucrezia reflected, the aftermath of a battle wasn’t the best setting for a coherent conversation. But Saturn’s arrival did mean there were no more family members wandering around to interrupt conversations with their arrival, since Barry and Elisa had stayed in Mechanicsburg for the campaign. Some sort of project had taken precedence for Barry, and Bill had deemed Elisa too young for this risky a conquest.

“Saturn!” Agatha squealed with the same delight she’d greeted her brother with at the age of three, and ran toward him. He caught her and spun her in the air much as Bill had. Once she was back on her feet she latched onto his arm and began pulling him into the room. “We managed to catch the Prince _and_ Baron and I got both their sons—I’m keeping them by the way, you can’t experiment—and Mother was going to kill them, but that would be such a _waste_ ….”

Lucrezia absently looked Saturn over for injuries or side effects of running into an experiment. He didn’t appear to have managed to charge into any experiments that could still deform him this time, which meant either there hadn’t been any in his areas of the castle, or that he’d managed to reverse the effects already. His hair did look a bit scorched, and an arm was bandaged, but it didn’t appear to have been severe enough to hinder him. His jägers weren’t in quite so good a condition; several were bandaged in multiple places, and a few were missing limbs. Well, they’d be repaired soon enough, and the children could likely do with the practice.

Saturn laughed, picking Agatha up to spin her again. “Magnificent! What a wonderful idea.” He set her down and turned to grin at Bill with the same excitement that usually preceded a large battle. Lucrezia thought that was a bit preemptive. “Let’s let them go, Father. It will be so much more fun!” He glanced over at them, and jerked a thumb at Klaus. “I’d say let’s have some fun with them a bit first for motivation, but that one doesn’t seem to need it….”

Bill rolled his eyes and shook his head, but he seemed more amused than angry. “ _I_ am still the Lord Heterodyne. You three do remember that, don’t you?” Lucrezia joined the children in giving him winning smiles, and he laughed. “Oh, very well, we’ll leave them alive. Lucrezia, what would you like to do with them? The same?”

“Well, without the killing, of course. Which does give me some interesting ideas….”

Bill nodded a bit absently. Well, Lucrezia would have his attention back as soon as she started cutting, anyway. She could wait for him to deal with whatever organizational details might interrupt them. “Saturn, Agatha, you two get the wagons packed and start home.” Agatha nodded; Saturn looked disappointed, but signaled his jäger guard to follow him out of the room. “Goomblast!”

The jäger general leaned out of a… well, Lucrezia supposed it couldn’t be called a doorway anymore, there certainly wasn’t any door now that it had been enlarged for all the jäger generals to fit through it. But it served the purpose. “Yez?”

“Go with them. Take half the army as escort,” Bill said. “The rest will follow with Lucrezia and I after we drop them off.” He tilted his head in the general direction of Klaus and Wilhelm.

“Hyu got it.” Goomblast didn’t bother with even the (deliberately, Lucrezia was certain) sloppy salute the rest of the jägers usually did, but turned and began barking orders at jägers, constructs, clanks, and human soldiers alike.

Lucrezia stepped lightly over to lean against Bill’s side. “So, now that there are no more distractions….”

“Yes.” Bill hummed, and his eyes fixed glittering on his two captured ex-rivals. “Klaus first, I think.”

Lucrezia smiled and handed the scalpel back to him. She’d be perfectly content to watch and talk while he worked, and he would give her plenty of time to do it in. There were reasons she’d chosen him of the three men present, after all, and they weren’t all power.

~---~---~---~---~

The first thing Gil noticed when he woke up was that he was uncomfortably warm. The second was that he still hurt. He groaned.

“Oh. You’re awake.”

Tarvek sounded detached. That wasn’t good. Gil opened his eyes as he sorted through memories. The Heterodynes had attacked Sturmhalten the day after he and his father arrived to visit. The army was huge; they _should_ have all fled, but only Anevka actually had, and not very willingly. They’d held off the Heterodyne army for longer than he’d expected before the defenses were smashed down, and fighting had spread through the castle. He and Tarvek had been captured by the Heterodyne girl who—ah—well, at least she seemed to want them alive. And his and Tarvek’s fathers were both probably alive.

Honestly, a better outcome than he’d been expecting once he realized the castle’s defenses couldn’t hold up. And it explained why it felt like he was in something moving.

…It did not explain why he seemed to be looking at the sky through a huge window. He sat up carefully. The many punctures from jäger claws and teeth protested, as did the bruises and cuts he’s picked up earlier in the fight, but didn’t seem to be very serious.

Tarvek looked worried and unhappy. That made sense. So did being in what seemed to be a wagon. They were in an end that was mostly empty, while the rest of the wagon was piled full of things. Fabrics, mostly, it looked like. There was a haphazard pile of bandages and a pot that Gil assumed was ointment in one corner. And the wagon’s walls and roof appeared to be made entirely of glass, with metal in the corners to hold it. A thin gap ringed the top. More glass wagons appeared on the road ahead and behind the one he was in, with soldiers, clanks, constructs, and jägers moving around beside and between the wagons. Gil found himself staring at a nearby giant mantis with what appeared to be sharpened arms as if it could make the glass wagon logical.

“Showing off,” Tarvek said. Gil turned to him. He looked slightly annoyed, which was at least better than worried. “Apparently the Heterodyne heir got the idea a while ago to build wagons out of windows so they could show off the spoils of war on the way home. And try to provoke attempts to steal from them so they’d have more people to kill.”

“…Ah,” Gil managed. “So, we—”

“Are considered spoils of war, yes.” Tarvek looked very irritated. Gil agreed. “Which means we’re _alive_ ….”

“I guess.” Gil should be happy about that. He might be. Mostly he hoped his father was still alive too. They’d decided not to kill him, but apparently Heterodynes changed their minds easily, and Gil wasn’t entirely sure that surrender was actually a concept his father knew of, even to survive.

“Yes.” Tarvek didn’t quite sigh.

“So.” Gil shifted, more out of restlessness than any purpose.

Tarvek watched Gil, as if evaluating something.

Gil stared back.

Tarvek sighed. He somehow made it sound angry. “I don’t _know_.” He waved a hand toward a wall in a frustrated gesture. “They can see everything we do and hear everything we say, if it looks like we’re trying to escape they’ll kill us, the only thing to work with in here is fabric, and once we reach Mechanicsburg….” Tarvek trailed off. “All I can think of is obey and hope they don’t kill us as quickly.”

That was more disappointing than Gil would have preferred. Not that he had any plans yet either, but Tarvek was the sneaky one. And Gil had been unconscious. He reached up to feel his head, winced, and decided not to do that again for at least a few days. “Oh. Well….” He trailed off too, unable to think of anything remotely useful to say.

Tarvek scowled out the wall. A jäger spotted him, and mockingly saluted the wagon before continuing along the caravan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thinking behind this is that Heterodynes' sense of morality seems to consist of a whole lot of very protective MINE toward Mechanicsburg and its inhabitants. Agatha, in this fic, has expanded that from "Mechanicsburg" to "whatever I rule," which leads to her clashing with her family. (Agatha, left alone, would wage war viciously and kill everyone in her way… and as soon as she won or they surrendered and were _hers_ , she would send the jägers to begin emergency rescue operations on ruined buildings and start personally reviving all the people she just killed.) Her family has _not_ expanded it at all, so by this point she's decided that the only way she can protect her people is by becoming the Heterodyne herself, which requires killing her father and brother, and probably her uncle and mother as well just so they won't kill her in return. So, she "kidnaps Gil and Tarvek for her harem" partly to keep them from being killed, and partly to get them where she can use their help to kill her family. (She doesn't _want_ to kill them. But they're hurting Her People, and she can't just let that continue.) She keeps up a pretense of being very motivated by "fun" and random whims so that she can do odd things without being questioned.
> 
> The boys initially don't know this, and I'm thinking one of them (Tarvek. Tarvek would make excuses, Gil would just yell and get himself dropped down bottomless pits by the Castle) comes up with an "I am uncomfortable with the idea of your Castle watching me" excuse to get out of the actually being part of a harem thing, which Agatha uses as an excuse to build a secure, soundproof little place somewhere a bit outside of Mechanicsburg to either keep the boys in outright or just go there with them at times… which is also conveniently perfect for telling them her plans to kill her family and ask for help without the Castle hearing. Both boys proceed to be torn between "she's way better than her family and I'm sort of starting to fall for her" and "but she's _still a Heterodyne_."
> 
> I have this very entertaining thought that Klaus is basically evil!Bill, Barry and Lucrezia's version of Othar; that really annoying hero that just _won't stop coming back_. Only with less humor and more homicidal rage.
> 
> I _also_ think this entire verse might be the result of canon Agatha, Gil and Tarvek building some sort of virtual reality machine to indulge Tarvek's fantasies ("tremble and obey") and getting _way_ more than they bargained for.
> 
> There… really is no chance I'll continue this myself; I am fascinated by the setup and characterization and plotting, but I can't really imagine it not being an extremely sexually charged fic (even if sex is offscreen, there's just… every interaction Agatha will have with the boys early on), which I don't think I could write and am not really interested in trying anyway. So! If you want to see this continued, someone else will need to write it.


	5. Surrender Rage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Urghhhh I've had this sitting open for, what, two and a half months now? I'm still not happy with it but it needs to get _out of my way_ now, so it's going up as it is.
> 
> Basic idea here is that Martellus waited another few seconds to try grabbing Agatha, and Agatha was, perhaps, a little angrier than in canon. (Also: can control revenants while wearing the locket, which I... can't tell if she's supposed to be able to do in canon? I was assuming she could but anyway.)
> 
> Something basically similar could happen at Sturmhalten as well, without needing to shove Martellus out of the way. (And maybe Lars could be revived.)

The battle armor landed, perhaps slightly off course from the fight on the way down, but Klaus was near Castle Heterodyne and the center of town. That was as precise as he needed.

The door opened, fell down to make a ramp, and hit the ground with a _clong_ that sent vibrations through the entire suit, like an echo of landing. Gkika was outside, smug and happy like any jäger anticipating a fight. She recognized Klaus as he stepped out, and became aggressive, calling all the jägers to attack.

" _ **Klaus**_!" It was a shame to see; beneath the aggression her eyes were wide, afraid and angry. But it didn't change anything. He couldn't let it matter.

"Ah. Gkika." Klaus stepped aside, turning so her claws went through empty air. "Hello." Color caught his eye as he turned; splashes of bright gold, green, blue, and white where the red of the Cathedral should be uninterrupted.

"Surrender! Now!"

"Of course."

Gkika stopped. "…Vot?"

Surrender was not, in Klaus's experience, something jägers often demanded; he especially didn't expect it from Gkika, whom he hadn't spent years trying to force into the habit of it. She must really be afraid of losing. Klaus hated that she was right to be, but there was no way to remove the jägers before trapping what they thought was their Heterodyne; no way to be sure she hadn't given them destructive orders first even if there had been.

Regardless, she couldn't possibly have been expecting him to agree to surrender, certainly not without fighting first. It was a good way to throw her off.

"You!" The voice was angry, and a bit distant, but audible over the battle, swelling with angry spark. Klaus turned toward it; on automatic, or caught, he wasn't sure. Perhaps both. He knew who he'd see before his eyes landed back on a balcony of the Red Cathedral; Lucrezia in her daughter's body, hair the brightest thing around. The way she was leaning over the railing was less typical; one of her companions was reaching to pull her back. "What is wrong with you?!"

He had to be fast. She couldn't know what he had with him, but she knew he didn't want to help her. She didn't need to know more. Klaus pulled the bomb out of a pocket; he needed to see to be sure he pressed the right button and not one of the safeties, they'd shut it down for minutes and he wouldn't get another—

"Leave me alone! Stop attacking us!"

 _No_.

Klaus stopped. He dropped the bomb back into a pocket before anyone else could see it, but that was all he could do.

"I have _never_ done anything to you! None of us have done anything to you! You—you— _hey_!" Lucrezia turned away, distracted as one of her companions—or perhaps not—grabbed her arm, trying to pull her away from the railing. Others attacked him, and a fight broke out.

The damage had already been done. One of the other jägers attacked Klaus and he was able to dodge, but he couldn't attack. He couldn't use the bomb; couldn't do anything else that might be effective, he was sure, even if he'd brought it with him.

He could run. He could interpret _leave me alone_ as _leave_ ; wonder about why she'd given such a vague order later. He could run and come back later, hope the command wore off. He took a step back toward the armor, turned—

Gkika was in the way, frowning at him; her eyes were narrowed in distrust even as she barked at another jäger that "he vos surrenderink! Go to Miz Agatha!" and the jäger abruptly changed directions, leaping toward the Cathedral instead of Klaus.

"Gkika." Klaus couldn't think of anything else to say; he wanted to help her, but she wouldn't believe him, and he couldn't say what he needed to.

"Klaus." Her eyes narrowed further. "Hy thought hyu vos surrenderink."

Was there such a thing as a pyrrhic loss, Klaus wondered abruptly. And if so, would that be a loss that did a great deal of damage to your enemies, or a loss in which you sabotaged yourself? "I'm afraid I must leave instead. I trust you won't mind that too much."

Gkika tilted her head, at odds with her tone. "Hy tink ve wait und let de Heterodyne decide dot."

Ah. Klaus saw the jägers that hadn't run for the Cathedral spread out, forming a more even circle around him. He committed Gkika's head tilt to memory; it was good to be able to read the enemy's signals. "It looked like one of her companions was attacking her. Shouldn't you be going over there?"

Gkika was relaxed enough to shrug. Klaus could have used that, if he wasn't currently unable to attack anyone associated with Lucrezia. "She iz strong, und enough ov my boyz already went. Dey vill be enough." Her eyes hadn't left Klaus, or gotten any less narrow. "Hyu iz not actink like hyu, Klaus."

"I assure you," Klaus said. "I am acting as much like myself as I possibly can."

Maybe he could warn her. Maybe he could at least make her suspicious, enough to pay attention. The jägers weren't as ignorant as they liked to pretend to be, and Gkika had always seemed to be smarter than most. It couldn't _hurt_ , it wasn't like Lucrezia thought he still didn't know who she was. He wouldn't be giving _her_ any more information.

Gkika frowned. "Dot iz not—"

"Mamma—er, General!" a jäger's voice called, and Gkika turned, not so far she couldn't see Klaus but enough to direct her exasperated expression to the side. Klaus turned, too; he might as well see what was going on. It was the first free decision he'd made since he heard Lucrezia's voice, and he still would have run if he could.

A handful of jägers were returning, carrying Lucrezia and her companions. The one who'd tried to grab her appeared to be unconscious, and was slung carelessly over a shoulder. It took a second to recognize Tarvek Sturmvoraus half dressed and arguing with the jäger carrying the unconscious man: "—all very nice, but you don't know what poisons he had on that blade, and I _assure_ you—"

The girl with similar hair was likely from the same family, stalking after Sturmvoraus, the unconscious man and the jägers and looking frustrated. A woman in the Vespiary Squad uniform who walked as if she were injured—Klaus firmly told himself that _Stop attacking us!_ included her, too, and shoved his own relief aside as she stopped, fear and anger on her face as she grabbed for Tarvek's shoulder. "Prince Sturmvoraus, that's the Baron!"

"—to know what you're immune—I know he's the Baron!" Sturmvoraus said, breaking off his argument with the jäger. "What's he _doing_ here?"

"What are _we_ doing here!" the girl with red hair demanded. "My Lady, I told you—"

"I am sick of running!" Lucrezia wiggled out of the hold of the jäger carrying her and planted herself on the stones, a wasp eater on her shoulder, spark humming in her voice and her posture subtly and painfully reminiscent of Zantabraxus. Klaus winced. How had she—? It couldn't _possibly_ be intentional, all of Skifander knew not to trust Lucrezia, but where could she have picked up similarities like that? Physical aggression wasn't typical of Lucrezia—but then, it had been twenty years and she had a new body. Perhaps she'd only ever refrained because she knew she'd lose. This body appeared much stronger. "My town is under attack and I am going to _end it_!"

"Lady Heterodyne!" The young man that grabbed Lucrezia's shoulder looked reminiscent enough of Carson for Klaus to begin rapidly reanalyzing everything Mechanicsburgers had told him about the town since he returned from Skifander. Why on Earth had he been foolish enough to trust them? A young woman hovered by his shoulder, looking somewhat more calmly exasperated while he seemed more likely to start tugging his own hair out. "This is far too dangerous, _please_ —"

" **Heterodyne**!" Lucrezia roared, and there was silence. The jägers looked proud, the abbot excited, Sturmvoraus pleased, and the other humans—and a cat in a coat—resigned.

The young man who must be a von Mekkhan was the only one undeterred. "Yes, Heterodyne! The Heterodyne we haven't had in twenty years! And what do you think will happen to Mechanicsburg if you _die_ , Lady Heterodyne? Losing the Heterodyne Boys was hard enough, and that time we had hope that they would come _back_."

Lucrezia stopped, mouth open, and blinked. Klaus kept his wince internal. The jägers edged closer to Lucrezia, expressions wary. She pressed her lips together, then straightened. "Well, _I_ am not going to go running off after the Other."

 _I'm sure you're not,_ Klaus couldn't say.

"Und," Gkika added, "he vos surrenderink."

" _Surrendering_?" Sturmvoraus sounded like this was somehow a personal affront to him. "The Baron doesn't surrender! He just flattens everything in his way."

"Well, Mechanicsburg is pretty difficult to flatten," Lucrezia said. "But it is weird—"

"You know," Castle Heterodyne's voice cut in, "I _can_ just squash him for you."

_Yes, please, kill the wasp with me—_

"Absolutely not," Lucrezia snapped. Klaus's throat tightened, and he couldn't tell if it was the wasp asserting control or his own frustration that couldn't get out. "I don't want you killing—or injuring!—anyone that isn't attacking us, is that clear?"

"It would be much _simpler_."

"I said no!"

"Oh very well…." Castle Heterodyne sighed. Or at least, Klaus had always assumed that quiet grating as stones shifted was a sigh.

"Agatha." Klaus noticed that Sturmvoraus had been watching him when Lucrezia turned to look at him. "Tell the Baron to… do something. Kneel, maybe."

"Why would I do _that_?" Lucrezia managed to sound simultaneously bewildered and affronted. "Why would _he_ do that?"

"Ah—because—because we think Lucrezia wasped him," Sturmvoraus said, and Klaus felt himself choking, freezing; no one was supposed to know but he hadn't said it, he couldn't stop it, Lucrezia's ally had said it—

"He _vot_?" several jägers echoed.

"It… would explain a lot," the Vespiary Squad woman said, realization and horror on her face.

"Eet fitz," Gkika growled.

"Who's we?" Lucrezia demanded.

"Gil and I, that's why we—" Sturmvoraus stopped, hands turning into fists at his side, and his eyes narrowed. "Agatha, ask him what he did to Gil."

_No!_

Her eyes narrowed, too, and she turned to him. "Tell me _exactly_ what you did to Gil."

He couldn't stop himself from answering.


	6. Everything Will Be Okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Baron finds out about the geisterdamen in Sturmhalten while Tarvek is still a hostage. Also has another (and... probably more reasonable) version plotted/described [here](http://tanoraqui.tumblr.com/post/135840036752/hmmm-what-about-an-au-where-klaus-discovered-the), because I am absolutely shameless about any opportunity to see what directions different people take the same ideas.
> 
>  _This_ version assumes (though hasn't stated yet) that the Baron is currently off actually fighting the geisterdamen, and may very well have not actually gotten back to Castle Wulfenbach between learning about the geisterdamen and current.

Lorelei Leitz was Tarvek’s third cousin, once removed, and twice his age at fourteen. Her father was barely nobility at all; only a baron, and ruled only a small mining town in the mountains. One of her brothers had been made a smoke knight. None of this gave her any reason to look at Tarvek like she pitied him.

She did it anyway, one afternoon as Tarvek walked back into the students’ common room after he gave up searching for Gil after their chemistry class, which Gil had skipped. There wasn’t much reason she could be doing it except to be annoying, or maybe make the other students think something bad had happened to his family and damage his reputation, which really would just be a different sort of annoying since it would be completely undone as soon as anyone checked. So he marched over and frowned up at her. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry, Tarvek,” she said. “I just got news about your father.”

Tarvek frowned. His father hadn’t been sick, and didn’t endanger himself in the lab like many sparks did. So it was probably the second possible annoyance. “What about him?”

She frowned thoughtfully at him before leaning in and lowering her voice. “Didn’t you know who he works for?”

Tarvek glared, and lowered his own voice as well. “The Order. Which is a _secret_ ,” he hissed, since she had apparently forgotten it.

“Not the Order,” she corrected quietly. “The Other. I’m sorry, Tarvek. He’s been caught. It’s been nice knowing you.”

“…Oh,” was all Tarvek could say, and even that took a second. “I… oh. Thank you for… telling me,” he managed, and backed hastily away.

He didn’t run to his room. It wouldn’t help. But he did collapse on his bed and stare at the wall blankly as soon as he got the door closed.

It didn’t feel real. He didn’t feel—enough. He didn’t feel anything. Shock, he noted absently. He hadn’t been expecting to die. It would take time to realize he was going to and react properly. Hopefully not too long.

The door creaked open a few minutes later. His shoulders tensed despite him intending not to let them. “Tarvek?”

Oh. It was just Gil. Gil was okay. “Hello.”

Tarvek could hear Gil step in and close the door. He’d never figured out why that was; Gil could walk silently when sneaking around the ship, but never did while in the school. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh.” Tarvek felt—not _like_ laughing, nothing was funny, but like he was about to anyway. He stuffed it down. “I’m going to die soon.” His voice sounded sort of faint; he needed to get that under control before the Baron came for him, or—or whoever the Baron sent to execute Tarvek.

“Wha—you are not!”

“I am.” Would he do it in the school, so the other hostages would see and write to their families that the Baron meant it? Probably not, Tarvek decided. Von Pinn wouldn’t like it.

“You are _not_!” Gil climbed onto Tarvek’s bed, and Tarvek rolled over to humor him. Gil looked scared. “Why would you be dying? You’re not sick!”

“I’m not dying, I’m going to die,” Tarvek explained.

Gil paused, nose and forehead wrinkling. “That… doesn’t make sense.”

“My father was working for the Other.” The Other. Tarvek hadn’t even thought of that, really. He decided there wasn’t a point in thinking about it. The Baron would put a stop to whatever damage his father had been doing soon if he hadn’t already. “The Baron caught him. And I’m a hostage.”

“But—but—” Gil stammered, obviously searching for words. “But—why would he kill you? It wouldn’t help anything!”

“Oh—it would.” Gil really didn’t understand politics. “If he doesn’t kill me now, then all the hostages he has are useless, because their families know he won’t do anything to them even if they misbehave.”

Other hostages—oh, yes. Tarvek should get his notes to Lorelei, she could pass them on to the Order. Ugh, that would mean _Martellus_ would get to be Storm King, it was so _unfair_. Martellus didn’t deserve it at _all_. But even if they didn’t search his rooms someone else would be living here soon, and they’d find it. Tarvek wasn’t going to give the Baron a reason to execute Lorelei too, and he’d have to if he found out about the Order.

Gil was frowning, face set the way that said he was going to be stubborn. “Well, I won’t _let_ him!” he said fiercely.

Tarvek appreciated it enough to make himself smile at Gil. It wouldn’t actually help, though. “There isn’t anything you can do about it.”

“Yes there is! I can—I can—” Gil frowned more, then grinned, satisfied. “I can hide you!”

“I—what? Hide me?”

“Sure! He can’t kill you if he can’t find you,” Gil said.

It—it wasn’t _likely_ , it wasn’t like they had anywhere else to _go_ , but Gil was technically right. The Baron couldn’t kill Tarvek if no one could find him. And they’d spent enough time exploring without getting caught.

And, well, he didn’t have any _other_ chance. It wouldn’t hurt to _try_. Tarvek sat up, and slid off the bed after Gil. “Give me—let me—no, let’s go now.” There were lots of things it would be _nice_ to have while hiding, if he did manage to hide for long at all, but nothing he _needed_ except food and water, and those weren’t in his room. And time. Tarvek had no idea when someone would come for him; the sooner they left the more time they’d have to get away. “Where?”

“C’mon. I’ll show you.” Gil started for the door, still grinning and fierce.

“No—wait—we need to look normal.” Lorelei might be suspicious, but she wouldn’t alert anyone, Tarvek was almost sure. Someone else might. “So no one pays attention.”

“Oh. Um.” Gil stopped, and frowned. “How do I normally look?”

“In school?” Tarvek stood in front of Gil and looked him over. “Here—shoulders in, head down—not that much—that’s good. And normally you’re doing something with your hands, um—here.” He grabbed his copy of the essay they’d read on aluminum and the new Bayer process, and handed it to Gil. “This is what we covered in class today, we can pretend I’m going to show you what we did.” Gil peered at it, genuine interest taking over his expression. Good.

Tarvek went over to his mirror while Gil skimmed the book. He looked a _little_ off, but it shouldn’t be too noticeable if no one looked closely. He fixed his hair and clothes, then turned back to Gil. “Okay, let’s go.”

Lorelei glanced at them as they left, but then glanced casually away. Gil was more than halfway buried in the essay.

They walked out of the common room, and into a hallway. Gil—nose still buried in the essay—led down the hallway and into a second, and then when no one was in the hallway, hurried through an empty doorway.

The room was unfinished—not just unfinished, barely begun. Only a third of the floor was down, and it looked like some of that was loose, vibrating with Castle Wulfenbach’s engines. Tarvek swallowed, and walked further in until he could peer down. There _was_ a floor beneath them, and an outer wall so they wouldn’t blow off, but the floor was much too far below them to make any difference if they fell.

Well. At least if Tarvek fell it would have been _his_ decision. He swallowed again, and peered up at the beams above them.

Yes—he could climb them. It would be difficult, but he could see the angles—and once he got up to _that_ beam, if he just went along it to the right, he’d be all but perfectly hidden in shadows, behind the beam, in a direction no one would look, and it was big enough to sit on comfortably.

“Okay,” Gil said. Tarvek blinked; he’d nearly forgotten Gil was there. Gil had been stuffing the essay in his shirt, apparently; Tarvek could see the shape of the pages easily. Well, it would work for climbing. “This isn’t one of the easy ones, but. I know a good place.”

Gil was right. Tarvek couldn’t guess when Gil had found it, and the climb was long, tiring, and several times there were gaps they could just barely get across, but Tarvek was buzzing with adrenaline and floating with relief, and Gil was able to lead Tarvek to a beam so wide it was nearly a platform, and well out of sight of anyone if Tarvek stayed low in the center of it. Hardly anyone ever even walked through the hallway below it anyway. It was perfect for hiding. He’d have to be quiet, of course, but he could do that easily.

Even from the edge, it was unlikely anyone would spot him. They just didn’t look up. Not that Tarvek should take the risk now, he reminded himself, and wriggled back to the center. This wasn’t like their normal explorations, getting caught would be much worse now. “This is—this is great, Gil, I—thank you. I didn’t think—but this might—actually work.” Tarvek swallowed and scrubbed the back of a hand over his eyes. Sure, _now_ he was reacting. Perfect.

Gil looked worried again. “Tarvek?”

Tarvek sniffed. It didn’t help. “It’s… it’s nothing, I just.” Was crying because he might _not_ die? That was stupid. “I was worried.”

Gil’s nose wrinkled. “It’d be weird if you weren’t.”

It was weird that Tarvek was crying _now_. Weird and stupid. Maybe if he stopped thinking about it. “Maybe. You should probably go back now.”

Gil frowned. “I wasn’t gonna go back.”

“What—but you have to!” Tarvek hissed, dragged the back of his sleeve over his eyes to dry them, and lowered his voice to something less carrying. “If you get caught—”

“It won’t be any worse than if you get caught,” Gil pointed out. “And the plan is to _not_ get caught.”

Tarvek bit his lip. Gil was correct, technically, but. “But I _might_ , so no one should know that you’re helping me, or you might get killed too.” Tarvek’s voice still sounded a little off, and Gil looked like he was about to be stubborn, so Tarvek hurried on. “And if you’re still in the school, you can get food and things. And get my notes to Lorelei—the secret ones—if the Baron finds those he’ll kill her too, and I can’t go back, so you have to hide them for me. And her.”

“But….” Gil looked stubborn for another moment, then folded his arms and pouted. “Fine, but I’m coming _back_ , okay?”

“Okay.” It would be best if Gil didn’t, but Tarvek really couldn’t get food or anything to drink on his own, and this would all be very pointless if he starved to death. “Just don’t come too soon. Make sure people see you in the school first.”

Gil pouted even more for a second, then sighed and unfolded his arms. “ _Okay_. So how am I supposed to be sneaky about getting food and things?”

“Um.” Tarvek hadn’t thought about that yet. “You can sneak into the students’ kitchen, right?” Gil stared at Tarvek, because that was a stupid question. Of course Gil could sneak into the students’ kitchen, he could sneak into anywhere. “Well, if you just take food from there, maybe they’ll just assume I’m taking it….”

Gil wrinkled his nose again. “But then it’ll all be raw.”

Considering how the older students sometimes preferred to experiment with what they cooked, raw was not the worst that could happen. Still. “Don’t get meat, then.” At least for now. Tarvek would still need to eat some meat if he managed to hide for long, or he’d stunt his growth. He could explain how smoke knights practiced eating gross things just in case later; if he started now, it would be hours before Gil left. “You should go back before anyone starts looking for us.”

Gil frowned again, but sighed instead of arguing. “Okay. I’ll come back tonight.”

“Okay.” It seemed too soon—any time seemed too soon, and Tarvek didn’t want Gil to get caught; it was safer for them both if Gil didn’t come find him. But Tarvek really would need to eat, and Gil wasn’t going to stay away, so at night was best.

Gil crawled away in the middle of the beam, keeping hidden, even though he normally would have stood up to walk and taken the risk. Tarvek appreciated it.

Maybe Tarvek could teach Gil some smoke knight tricks. Not the ones for fighting, at least not first, but for sneaking around, and not being seen. Gil could use those. He’d be Tarvek’s smoke knight; a way better one than any of the others Tarvek had met. He curled up on the beam, planning how to teach Gil, and Gil was _definitely_ gone before Tarvek had to stuff his face in his arms to stop anyone from hearing him crying.

He still wasn’t sure if it was because he thought this couldn’t work, or because he thought it could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...So despite the start, my thoughts for this fic are probably basically pure crack. First I'm thinking that the other hostages will help Gil to cover up Tarvek's absence and smuggle food and things to him, because they're all hostages, why would they take the Baron's side in this? This combined with the Baron's absence ends up providing enough time for Tarvek and Gil to find (possibly modify, because if _anything_ is going to make Tarvek break through early...) and steal a couple of flyers or a small ship, and escape/run away. So by the time the Baron returns, still somewhat irritated that _anyone_ was working with the Other but relatively content that Aaronev is most definitely taken care of, probably with Anevka and maybe her mother in tow and only just starting to remember that he has Aaronev's son on board, no one's seen Gil in a week (and no one's seen Tarvek in even longer). He, naturally, panics, probably decides that Tarvek kidnapped Gil as leverage against him, and immediately directs all Empire resources to finding his son. (And if he doesn't actually say who Gil is, people are probably starting to figure it out anyway.) He will eventually piece together that Gil and Tarvek were friends and Gil probably left on his own to help Tarvek, but it doesn't actually make finding them any easier.
> 
> Gil and Tarvek, meanwhile, have managed to reach Paris. Tarvek has insisted that they pick new names, because just because the Baron isn't _allowed_ to kidnap them out of Paris doesn't mean he won't _try_ anyway, so they'd better not let anyone know who they are. (Hearing news of the Baron's tearing through Europa in search of, they think, Tarvek just makes them both more convinced that Tarvek is right and they can't tell anyone where they're from or why they ran away.) Neither of them actually knows how to survive on their own, which is just starting to sink in when they run into the mysterious, beautiful and eccentric Lady Jenka.
> 
> Jenka, for her part, may not know _which_ Heterodyne she's working for right now, but she can recognize high-quality future minions when she sees them, so she takes the kids in and starts teaching them about how awesome Heterodynes are. (This may or may not involve encouraging Gil and Tarvek to practice sneaking and sabotage by playing pranks on Martellus's summer home during the winter. Jenka knows how to motivate mischievous kids. It's really not that different from dealing with her brothers at all.)
> 
> ...Ten or so years later, Gil and Tarvek probably reemerge onto the scene in Europa with a newly invented Heterodyne-finding machine. (Agatha Clay is less than impressive at first, but she improves pretty quickly once her parents explain and she throws her locket out a window.) The Baron is still singlemindedly searching for Gil, so he more or less ignores the whole "new Heterodyne" issue, maybe sends a few diplomats but doesn't go anywhere near it himself. (More likely Boris sends the diplomats, and has been basically running the Empire by himself for a while now.)
> 
> The support of Agatha, Mechanicsburg, and the jagers (and the Empire having weakened due to Klaus's sole focus being the search for Gil) is enough for Tarvek to decide it's worth the risk to reveal who he is, and try to take back Sturmhalten and possibly start on the Storm King's empire as a whole. This news, combined with the rumors that the kid claiming to be the missing Sturmvoraus has a friend that looks remarkably like the Baron is enough to catch Klaus's attention, so he comes running over.
> 
> Tarvek is expecting an invasion, or threats, or assassination attempt, or something like that. Instead he gets Klaus storming in, probably knocking some guards out of the way, ignoring Tarvek completely, and demanding if Gil is Gil. As soon as Gil goes "uhhh..." (because he's still terrible at lying when surprised), Klaus grabs him, hugs him, and then starts in on "where have you BEEN" and "what were you THINKING anything could have happened to you" and "are you okay?" and probably also crying but everyone is ignoring that detail because this is weird enough as it is.


	7. Early Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Master Payne's Circus of Adventure arrives in the town of Zumzum a day earlier than in canon.
> 
> Also, while this idea has been around in vague form for a while, the actual writing of it is _very_ much motivated by [songwithnosoul](http://archiveofourown.org/users/songwithnosoul/pseuds/songwithnosoul)'s fic [Hangman](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5712523). Some details were also borrowed from there (with permission!), so this is more or less a sequel. Apart from, uh, how Hangman is canon compliant and this is AU and they are therefore in different universes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Augh. Aaaaugh. If I were actually writing this properly it would still be getting significant editing, but it has been over a week and it is four times as long as planned already and I am _done_.
> 
> The jagers are _really_ unhappy in the beginning of this, but it does get better. The stupid adventurer (and variants) is of course Othar, but I've decided the jagers (or at least Dimo) is doing a thing I do where I pretend that anyone I'm mad at doesn't have a name.
> 
> Credit for [Dana](http://notapaladin.tumblr.com/post/130664184414/dana-vasilescu-jaeger-cavalry-seen-on-the-left) [Vasilescu](http://notapaladin.tumblr.com/post/131584171239/outtakes-that-didnt-make-it-into-the-latest) and the war octopus incident goes to [lilithqueen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithqueen/pseuds/lilithqueen).

Dimo hadn’t volunteered to be detached because he had a lot of hope of succeeding.

He’d had _some_ —early on, during times when he was stuck somewhere hiding, or recovering, or just waiting out rain he didn’t feel like getting wet in, he’d daydreamed about finding a Heterodyne. As far as any jäger Dimo talked to knew Master Bill had been absolutely (frustratingly, foolishly) loyal to his wife, even before he met her, and Master Barry had been the same, without ever even having a wife. But most Heterodynes weren’t like that, especially not before being married and only a few more of them afterwards, so there had to be a lot of branches of the Heterodyne family out there waiting to be found. And alright, maybe Heterodynes had a tendency to get themselves killed young, all that conquering was dangerous after all, and with mothers chosen just because they looked pretty and not for intelligence the spark would be rarer, but—there had to be _some_ out there.

Dimo had given that hope up years ago. Since then, if he had to remind himself why he was doing this (except that he couldn’t _not_ , going back to the pack wasn’t an option, it wasn’t allowed and it would still be betraying his masters if it was), he just hoped that his brothers who hadn’t been detached were doing well.

That was not the only reason he was completely unprepared to smell Heterodyne when a circus rolled into some unimportant town (which apparently happened to have a _heroic spark_ handy, which was why he was hanging, but that was suddenly unimportant), but it was a big one.

His first thought was that he was hallucinating, but even the hangovers had long since worn off, and Maxim and Oggie smelled it too, once he got them to pay attention. And they all agreed, after a second, on who it was—a blond girl, who didn’t look _that_ much like any recent Heterodynes for Dimo to guess exactly whose granddaughter she was, but—

She was a Heterodyne. She was a Heterodyne, and she saw them, and she recognized them, and Dimo could (just barely, but he could) smell fear.

She asked what they’d done—which, alright, it wasn’t like assuming they’d done something was unreasonable (even if they hadn’t done anything, not really, not this time), but it wasn’t an objection either, and that stung. And she was talking to a circus woman and a man from the town, so they couldn’t say anything to her. She talked about Master Bill and Master Barry and the Baron like any ordinary human, like she wasn’t their equal, and the town man told her the jägers hadn’t done anything wrong and she still didn’t mind that they were hanging, and the circus girl noticed they were watching (of course they were, what else would they be doing—) and the Heterodyne said “maybe we should stay away from them. Let’s go,” and left.

Dimo had heard clearer orders to _stay away_ before, but not by much.

Dimo hadn’t thought about whether she was a spark or not before the play started, and answered the question for him. She definitely was—there were actors that could mimic sparks, but they could never get it exactly right like the Heterodyne did. She played Lucrezia, flirtatious and cheerfully mad and ambitious, but not exactly like the Lucrezia that Master Bill had brought home. This was—this was Lucrezia if she had been a Heterodyne daughter, instead of a Heterodyne’s wife; there was power in the way she moved and echoes in her voice that other sparks never had. It was strange to watch, like everything in the world had tipped just the tiniest bit, but all in different directions so nothing lined up but Dimo couldn’t actually see the change, and he’d barely met the real Lucrezia. (She’d preferred jägers that she thought were more attractive, so Dimo had only ever been shooed away from her presence—on Oggie’s other side, Maxim was making faces like a human kid trying to swallow a bug that was still alive.)

Dimo smelled fear again, when the Heterodyne first got onstage and saw the stupid hero adventurer spark in the audience; a sharp spike, and then it faded, and part of Dimo was glad that she didn’t like the hero spark either, and part of him hated that she was afraid (in danger) and he couldn’t do anything, and he had no idea what to do even if he’d been able.

The spark found her as soon as the play was over, and Dimo smelled fear again, strained automatically against the ropes to go _help her_ , but he still couldn’t reach or break them. The Heterodyne and the hero spark disappeared into the nearest circus wagon, and Dimo tried to listen as hard as he could, but all he could hear was the crowd of all the other humans that didn’t matter, he could hear her voice but not well enough to filter out any words—

“Olga,” Maxim muttered. “She tells fortunes.”

Dimo stopped listening so he could look at Maxim. “Vot?”

“De schmott guy called her Madam Olga, who tells fortunes,” Maxim said. His attention was on the wagon, eyes narrowed like that would help his hearing. “Bot dey iz—” he broke off and snarled, kicked his legs like he’d forgotten he couldn’t lunge toward the wagon.

“ _Vot_?” Dimo snapped.

“He tried to shoot her! De lest time dey met,” Maxim added, and Dimo cut off his own growl, relaxed his arms again, and tried to think of something he hadn’t tried yet to get loose.

“Und _now_?” Oggie had started struggling when Maxim tried to lunge, and not stopped yet, so Dimo kicked him. He yelped and settled back down.

Maxim was quiet, listening and frowning, and Dimo distracted himself from demanding answers _right now_ by trying to think of another way down. Maybe if—no, he’d need at least one working shoulder to cut the rope with his claws, he couldn’t dislocate both of them.

Maxim didn’t say anything until after the hero spark had left the wagon, cheerfully whistling until he was in the middle of people again, and the townsfolk and circus people surrounded him with praise.

Maxim sighed, and—relaxed, almost, except his head dropped down too, as much as it could in the noose. “She knows vot she iz,” he said from behind his hair. “De Baron tinks she iz dead, und she tinks she ken’t survive az a—az _her_ , so she isn’t.”

“Bot… she ken’t not be,” Oggie said, hurt and confused.

“She iz pretendink,” Maxim said. “ _Dot_ guy,” he lifted his head a bit. His hair was still in the way, but Dimo could tell from the tone that he was glaring, and could guess who at, “vants her to be his apprenteece, bot she sez no.”

The door of the wagon opened again, and Dimo turned to look instead of trying to think of something to say that wasn’t _damn_. The Heterodyne (because she was a Heterodyne, even if she was hiding) was frowning to herself as she left the wagon, but she didn’t look hurt (and if she had been Maxim definitely would have done something). She didn’t seem to notice that she had to walk past them to get to the crowd.

“Hey!”

She jumped when Oggie yelled, and spun to stare up at them, eyes wide and startled. Dimo turned, too, to stare. “Oggie—”

Oggie grinned down at her, wide and crazy like he was about to fight, except his eyes were bright in the wrong way. “Hey, Miss—!” Dimo kicked him, and he at least didn’t say _Heterodyne_ , but didn’t shut up. “Hy vant a fortune too!”

Oggie had already attracted attention from crowd. “Think you’ve already taken enough fortunes you didn’t deserve,” someone in it muttered.

The Heterodyne frowned up at him, then turned away. “No.”

“Bot—Hy vant one!” Oggie yelled, louder, like he could change her mind.

“Do it!” someone in the crowd yelled, and Olga stopped. (She hadn’t for them.) “Tell the jägers their fortune!”

Olga put her hands on her hips. “I don’t work for free, you know!”

“I’ll pay for it!” A woman in the crowd pushed forward, already digging in her purse. She pulled coins out, and pushed them into Olga’s hand. “There—for all three of them.” She grinned up at Oggie, Maxim and Dimo, dull human teeth bared. “Let’s see what fortunes jägers have!”

Olga didn’t move for another second, then tucked the coins away—somewhere near the waist of her dress, a pocket probably—and spun on her heel to face them again. “Very well, then!” The spark was back in her voice; it echoed through the town square, and Heterodyne power in the way she stood.

She took a step forward, and Oggie cringed away.

She stared at them, searching for a moment, then nodded sharply. “Jägers share their fate,” she declared, and the words—they weren’t hard to guess, for anyone who knew anything about jägers, but—Dimo found himself straining too, not sure whether he was trying to move closer or away. “So what I say for one is true for all.”

She took a breath as the crowd whispered. “You’ve been searching for something that’s very important to you, but not to many other people, for a very long time, and you just found it recently,” she said. Maxim made a high-pitched noise that might have been a whine if it were louder. “But it hasn’t made you any happier, even though you gave up everything you had for it. Am I correct?”

“…Yez,” Maxim choked out after a moment, when it became clear that the Heterodyne was waiting for an answer from them.

She nodded sharply. “You’re lost—you don’t have anywhere to go, and you don’t have anyone to follow, and you don’t know what you’re doing or why.”

“Yez,” Maxim said, pained.

She nodded again, and studied them quietly. Dimo didn’t want to know what she’d have to say next.

“Yeah, but that’s all old stuff, lady!” someone in the crowd yelled. “Tell us about the future!”

The Heterodyne spun and roared “ _Do not question the science!_ ” and home hit Dimo so hard he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut against it.

She’d turned back before he opened his eyes, and was looking up at where they were hanging again, face expressionless. Her words hit like stones, if the moment of impact continued forever instead of stopping immediately. “But as for the future—I don’t think any of us need science to answer _that_.”

Maxim made another choked off whine, so Dimo said “no,” for him. Oggie didn’t say anything. The crowd was laughing, and the Heterodyne turned around and walked back to join it.

~---~---~---~---~

None of them spoke for hours. The circus closed its acts, the party wound down, and the people went to sleep, the townspeople in their homes and the circus members in their wagons. The town went dark and quiet, only distant scuffling of animals and guards and the light whisper of wind to break the silence.

It was almost dawn when Oggie sniffed. Dimo turned, but seeing Oggie didn’t tell him much. Oggie sniffed again; louder, like he was crying. “Oggie?”

“Vot if—vot if, dere iz neffer a Heterodyne dot vants os again?”

“Dere vill be,” Dimo snapped, harsher than he’d meant to. He lowered his voice. “She ken’t be de only vun, und she vill haff keeds, dere vill be lotz of Heterodynes to like os.”

“Bot vot if dey don’t?” Oggie repeated. He didn’t sound like there actually was an answer that would stop him from asking it.

“It dun matter,” Maxim said grimly. “De troth dun say only if dey like os.”

“Hy know vot de troth sez!” Oggie snapped. “Hy haff sed eet more den hyu, dun hyu tell me—”

“Why, my zumil! Up and eager for training already! I must not be working you hard enough, I’ll have to fix that…” drifted over from the circus’s camp, along with a surprised squeak and thump. Dimo ignored it. The sky was beginning to turn light to the East, so they wouldn’t have had much more time to themselves anyway.

“Dere vill be more,” Dimo repeated, since he couldn’t start a fight to distract them from the argument like he normally would. (Like Maxim normally would, more often; sometimes he even did it when he was one of the ones starting the argument.)

Maxim and Oggie stopped arguing, but they just turned hurting faces to him. “Hyu dun know dot,” Maxim said.

“Hy do,” Dimo said, even though he didn’t.

“Hyu ken’t know dot,” Maxim said. “How hyu know dot?”

“Hy know becawze iz _true_ ,” Dimo said, like that was convincing at _all_.

Maxim growled, and snapped his teeth in Dimo’s direction. “Hyu dun know ennyting!”

“Hy _do_ , iz _obveeous_ ,” Dimo said.

Maxim growled again, and kicked Oggie.

“Hoy!” Oggie kicked Maxim back.

Maxim kicked Oggie again. “Hy ken’t reach Dimo, _hyu_ kick him for me.”

Oggie paused, then shrugged. “Hokay.” Kicking Maxim meant he was already moving a little, and he twisted with it to kick at Dimo.

Dimo mostly got out of the way, and kicked back at Oggie. It was kind of a weird way to fight, but if it distracted them….

It did; within a few minutes all three of them were kicking each other. More specifically, Dimo and Maxim were both kicking Oggie, and Oggie had long since lost track of who he was kicking for who and was just swinging back and forth and kicking whoever was easiest to reach at the time. It was actually sort of fun, Dimo almost kicked Oggie into Maxim once.

So naturally that was when the Heterodyne’s voice said, from very close and a lot less than pleased, “ _what_ are you three _doing_.”

All three of them froze. They were still swinging a little, but couldn’t really control that. “Um.” Dimo automatically pasted on a big, bright, not very intelligent grin, and offered, “toking?”

The Heterodyne sighed. “With your _feet_. No, don’t answer that,” she added, and Oggie’s mouth snapped shut.

She was holding a knife and looked annoyed. So did the cat construct that was standing next to her. The green-haired sword mistress was there too, and looked kind of worried, so probably Dimo should not flirt with her, even though she looked nice and liked weapons and obviously knew what a great color green was.

Also, there was a Heterodyne present who didn’t like jägers and said they were going to die. That was also a good reason not to flirt with the Heterodyne’s friend.

She frowned up at them for a few more seconds before speaking again. “What are you doing here?”

“…Hanging?” Oggie offered.

“I mean in town. Why were you in town?”

That was really supposed to be a secret, but it was a Heterodyne asking. “…Heard dere vos a kid dot looked like Master Bill,” Dimo said. “Came to look.”

Her frown didn’t seem angry, but Dimo couldn’t tell what it was. “Which kid?”

“Dunno.” Dimo could probably spot the kid again, but he didn’t know the kid’s name or whose kid he was. “Dun matter.”

“He vos not Heterodyne,” Maxim said, and very wisely did not add _but we don’t need him anyway now_ or _but you are_.

So of course Oggie said, “ _hyu_ iz,” like an accusation.

Dimo kicked him, but he just kicked Dimo back. The damage was already done anyway, so Dimo left it alone.

The sword mistress had turned to the Heterodyne, eyebrows raised. “Agatha?”

The Heterodyne winced. “Um. Surprise?”

“That was a _secret_ ,” the cat said, glaring at Oggie, while Dimo wondered if Maxim had misheard when he called her Olga.

Oggie ducked his head. “Sorry?”

The sword mistress sighed. “We can talk after we’ve left town, but you at least need to tell Master Payne.”

The Heterodyne frowned. “I thought it would be safer if he didn’t know.”

“He already knows the Baron wants you,” the sword mistress said, and Maxim and Oggie focused on her just like Dimo did. “This just tells him why.” She paused, then added thoughtfully, “I guess his kid really _wasn’t_ your lover, then?”

The Heterodyne turned red, and a little bit of spark crept into her voice as she yelled “he was _not_ my lover!”

The sword mistress raised her hands, but was grinning. “Okay, okay. He wasn’t your lover.”

The Heterodyne folded her arms and glared at the sword mistress for a few more seconds before turning back to the jägers. “So if I cut you down, what will you do?”

“What?” the sword mistress said, right along with Maxim.

“Will you attack anyone? Or will you just leave?”

“ _Hyu_ said ve vos dyink here,” Maxim said. Dimo hoped very hard that he would not fall into this new pattern of jägers saying accusatory things to a Heterodyne, because apparently he was the only one left with the sense not to.

“The entire _town_ was watching, of course I did,” the Heterodyne said.

Oh.

She hadn’t meant it.

A lot of the worry that had been crowding out all the organs in Dimo’s chest vanished. “Ve do vot hyu tell os to.”

“We’re _still_ in the middle of town,” the sword mistress said.

“Yes, that’s why I stayed up,” the Heterodyne said, and started walking toward the ladder at the side of the gallows.

“It’s already dawn,” the sword mistress said. She sounded worried, but didn’t do anything to stop the Heterodyne.

Dimo sniffed. It told him nothing. He could smell the Heterodyne (finally) and Maxim and Oggie and the cat and he thought he could identify the sword mistress, but there were too many people for him to identify guards or how close they were.

Very close, it turned out. Someone yelled “stop!” just as the Heterodyne finished pulling herself onto the platform.

She turned, and Dimo craned his head to see. Three guards, who all had spears. That was… better than guns? A little? They were all glaring at the Heterodyne, which was _not_ better. Dimo tried pulling against the ropes on his wrist again, and still couldn’t break them. He growled under his breath.

The sword mistress had a hand on the hilt of her swords, and the Heterodyne smelled like she was starting to be afraid again, but she put her hands on her hips and yelled back. “I don’t see why I should! They didn’t do anything!”

“They’re _jägers_ ,” the guard said, and took a few steps closer to the gallows. The others followed. “I don’t know what they told you, miss, but they’re bad news. Now if you’ll just come back down….”

“So species is enough of a reason for you to kill people?” the Heterodyne asked. “Do you execute every construct that you see? Or just the ones that look scary?”

“Jägers deserve it, miss,” the guard said. “Now just come on down, and you can go back to your friends and forget this ever happened.”

“Dere iz more comink,” Maxim said. “Runnink.”

“No,” the Heterodyne snapped at the guard. “ _You_ stay out of this!”

“Stop her!” the guard ordered. He pulled his arm back to throw the spear, and was bowled over by the sword mistress.

“Agatha, hurry!”

The Heterodyne took two more steps, and cut Maxim’s hands loose. He reached up, and cut himself down as the Heterodyne moved to free Oggie’s hands, and the sword mistress cut one of the spears in half with one of her swords, and knocked another to the side.

And then Dimo’s hands were free as Maxim jumped into the fight (just in time, as more guards arrived). Oggie followed him down, and the townspeople being stupid or arrogant enough to leave their weapons in reach was suddenly very convenient, because by the time Dimo got the noose off Oggie had already tossed his knives up onto the platform.

The Heterodyne was biting her lip and watching the fight. Dimo wasn’t sure why; Maxim and Oggie and, he thought, also the sword mistress were holding back, because they were all just disarming and knocking the guards out, but they were still winning pretty easily. There were even more guards arriving, of course, but they didn’t look like they’d be any tougher.

“…I don’t think leaving town is going to be easy now,” the Heterodyne said.

Eh. They could try. So long as the spark didn’t get involved, Dimo didn’t think it would be a problem. “Hyu vant out?”

The Heterodyne looked at him. She looked annoyed, but she didn’t want them dead, so that was okay. “Well, _staying_ certainly isn’t a good idea.”

“Hokay den!” Dimo slid the second last of his knives back into place, kept the last one out, and then hesitated. “…Hy ken carry hyu? If hyu vant to go fast….” She nodded, so he picked her up very carefully, and made sure she was as secure as possible and didn’t mind the way he was carrying her with one arm (like a kid, which some humans found insulting, but he had a knife in the other hand) before jumping off the platform. “Maxim! Oggie! Ve’s leavink!”

“Bring Zeetha and Krosp!” the Heterodyne yelled, a bit too close to Dimo’s ear for his comfort, but he didn’t actually mind.

“That’s me and the cat!” the sword mistress called before Maxim or Oggie could ask. “But just the cat, I’m fine!”

“ _Emperor_ of Cats!” came the cat’s voice from under the gallows.

Dimo punched one of the guards that was in his way, and another who wasn’t quite in the way but had a crossbow that he’d rather not have behind him, and then took off.

Getting out of the town wasn’t hard at all, really. After the guards at the gallows there was no one around until the gate, and the gate was even open. There were guards there too, but they didn’t notice Dimo in time to do more than shout in surprise as he went past. A gun fired behind him, but didn’t come close to hitting; he wasn’t even sure if it had been _at_ him, or back into the town at Maxim or Oggie.

The Heterodyne didn’t say anything until Dimo stopped a few kilometers down the road and set her down. “Thanks.” She stared back down the road toward town. “Will they get out okay?”

“Maxim und Oggie vill be fine, und dey vill bring hyu friends,” Dimo said. “Eet vill not take dem long.”

It did take them longer than Dimo expected, but not by much. They both had their hats back when they ran into sight on either side of Zeetha, who didn’t seem to be having any trouble keeping up, and was listening to Maxim brag about his sword. (Dimo resolved to punch Maxim later. Girls that liked green were surprisingly rare.) The cat was clinging to Oggie’s back, which Oggie apparently didn’t mind. He was grinning like he’d never be able to stop.

The cat jumped down as soon as they got close enough, and stalked over to the Heterodyne on his hind legs. “That was stupid,” he informed her.

She puffed up with sparky offense, then deflated. “…Yeah.”

“You shouldn’t have done it.”

She folded her arms and glared back at the cat. “Well, what else was I supposed to do?”

“Leave them!”

“No!” the Heterodyne said, and Maxim and Oggie both relaxed as Dimo did.

“Could you have built something that would have gotten them down?” Zeetha asked.

“Well, yes,” the Heterodyne said, still eyeing the cat, who glared back. “But I wanted to talk to them first.”

“Well, it’s done now,” Zeetha said. “And they might still send someone after us, so let’s get off the road.”

“Right.” The Heterodyne sighed, and frowned at the trees as she stepped off the road. “I wish I had my death ray….”

“The circus will probably be by soon. You can get it once they’re out,” Zeetha said as she and the cat followed. Oggie hurried to get ahead while Dimo and Maxim split to either side behind the Heterodyne. Zeetha glanced at them, but didn’t comment.

“Do you think they’ll let me?” The Heterodyne paused, then sounded worried. “Do you think they’ll get out?”

Zeetha did not. “They’ll be fine. Master Payne can talk them out of any trouble, and they won’t stick around. Besides, he really _didn’t_ know it would happen. So he won’t even have to lie.”

“And they’ll believe that?”

Zeetha shrugged. “Maybe not at first, but there’s not much they can actually do.”

“Which gate will they leave from?” the cat asked.

“…East, probably,” Zeetha decided. “They’ll end up on that road, anyway, even if they go out a different one.”

“Right. Let’s find that road, then,” the Heterodyne said.

Finding the East road meant turning around, crossing the road they’d just left, and then continuing, but they still got there pretty quickly, and only had to fight off one rogue clank on the way. (Dimo reminded himself that now was not the time to flirt with Zeetha, even though he _really_ should find a chance to later.)

Once they found the road Maxim climbed a tree so he could watch for the circus and any town guards, while the rest of them retreated a bit further back into the trees. The place they stopped wasn’t a clearing, really, but the trees were big and old enough that there was hardly anything growing on the ground, and enough space between them that the Heterodyne, the cat, and Zeetha could all sit on the roots of their own trees. Dimo and Oggie could have too, but Dimo wanted to be standing in case another rogue clank or something wandered in, and Oggie seemed to be thinking the same thing, so they both stood leaning against trees on opposite sides of the space.

Zeetha started the conversation, crouching on a particularly flat root across from the Heterodyne. “There _is_ a good chance that Master Payne won’t let us stay with the circus now, and even if he did we’d probably be endangering them, so we’ll be going through the Wastelands ourselves.” She looked thoughtful for a moment before continuing. “We can probably take a more direct route to Mechanicsburg by ourselves, if we ignore the roads. And this does explain why you wanted to go there….”

Oggie lit up. “Hyu iz going to Mechanicsburg?”

“Yeah.” The Heterodyne sighed and leaned back against her tree. “Lilith told me to go to Castle Heterodyne, and it would keep me safe.”

“Der Kestle is kind ov broken,” Oggie said.

“Lilith?” Zeetha asked.

“Ah—Judy,” the Heterodyne said. “Castle Heterodyne is broken?”

“Ve thot Meester Ponch und Miz Judy vos dead,” Dimo said. He hadn’t really thought _about_ it much, but why else wouldn’t they have come home?

The Heterodyne’s lips pressed together, and her hands clenched into fists beside her. “They are _now_. Von—one of the Baron’s constructs killed them when they were helping me escape Castle Wulfenbach.”

“Vell, iz a—ow.”

Dimo shook his hand out, and returned to his side of the clearing as Oggie picked himself up. He was thinking the same thing; helping the Heterodyne escape _was_ a good way to die. But he didn’t think the Heterodyne would like to hear it yet.

The Heterodyne frowned at them, then sighed. “So what about the Castle being broken?”

Dimo shrugged. “Ve dun know how, ve haff not been in it. Bot de attack damaged it zumhow, iz a mess.”

The Heterodyne frowned again, and looked stubborn. (Dimo knew what happened when Heterodynes were feeling stubborn: the world got out of the way.) “Well, then, hopefully the Baron won’t catch up until I’ve fixed it.”

“I don’t think he’d bother with this,” Zeetha said thoughtfully. “So he’ll probably still think you’re dead. That will give us time.”

“Dead?” Oggie echoed.

“A clank killed Olga at the same time as Agatha joined us,” Zeetha said. “Her body was unrecognizable and we knew Agatha was running from the Baron, so we doctored the body to look like Agatha’s. The people the Baron sent believed it.”

“Tenk hyu,” Oggie said. Zeetha looked unsure how to answer.

“Hyu iz hidink from de Baron?” Dimo asked.

The Heterodyne frowned at an apparently innocent tree in front of her. “Yes. He’s—well, he wanted me sedated as soon as he knew who I was, I don’t know what he’d have done after that….”

But what came after sedation was never really good. Usually it involved becoming an experiment. They would need to get to Mechanicsburg quickly, Dimo decided; it didn’t sound like there was room for messing up now. Maybe Jenka could find more wild jägers, the Wulfenbach ones might make the Baron suspicious even if only a few left, and Dimo didn’t think that was very likely anyway. They’d all want to. (Hey, being detached had advantages! That hadn’t happened before.) “Ve get hyu to Mechanicsburg qvickly,” Dimo said. “Ve iz good et—”

A branch snapped—a _large_ branch; too loud to have broken just from something jäger-sized stepping on it. Dimo tensed and swung around. It was coming from the opposite direction from the road…. Which was also the opposite direction from the wind, damn, he couldn’t smell what this was….

“What’s out there?” Zeetha asked as Oggie turned too, poleaxe in both hands and eyes narrowed.

Zeetha and the Heterodyne both stood as the cat scrambled up a tree. Zeetha reached for her swords, and they slid easily out of their harness. The Heterodyne looked around, and chose a solid branch from the ground.

…Dimo had seen Heterodynes do more impressive things, but it was the right instinct. “Hoy, cat,” he said quietly. “Go und get Maxim.”

“My name is _Krosp_ ,” the cat hissed, but he scrambled down the tree and darted in the direction of the road and Maxim.

More branches snapped. Mostly small ones; a bush maybe? What would crush a bush without Dimo being able to hear its steps or gears or something—

An unnaturally large bear’s head poked out of a thicket, followed by a leg, and it shouldered a bush aside with a series of snaps. Dimo relaxed.

Then he remembered what he’d been doing that led to finding a Heterodyne, and relaxed slightly less.

“Jenka!” Oggie called, excited. “Ve did it!”

Jenka stared down at them from Füst’s back as the bear came to a stop. “Did vot?”

“Ve found a Heterodyne! Und she dun even vant os dead for real!” Oggie said.

The Heterodyne groaned. Dimo marched across the clearing and tried to punch Oggie, but he ducked.

“I was pretending to be a fortune teller,” the Heterodyne explained. “And they were hanging and the whole town was watching so I couldn’t really say they’d live without getting attacked, but I didn’t _mean_ it.”

“Vot,” Jenka demanded, “did hyu _do_.”

“Er….” Oggie edged away from Jenka. “Vos Dimo’s fault?”

“Vos not! Eet vos hyu idea!”

“Not de game!”

“Boys,” Jenka growled. Oggie edged a bit further away from her. Dimo resisted the urge to, but also shut up. “I vill deal vith _hyu_ later. Vere iz Maxim?”

“Vatchink de road,” Dimo said.

Jenka sighed and jumped off of Füst. She landed most of the way to the Heterodyne, and took the last few steps quickly enough the the Heterodyne only took a half step back after Jenka had stopped. “So hyu are claiming to be a Heterodyne.”

The Heterodyne straightened and glared back at Jenka. “I _am_. Who are you? Another jäger?”

Jenka pulled her mask down just enough to uncover her nose without saying anything, and leaned forward.

The Heterodyne’s grip on her stick tightened. “What are you—”

Jenka sighed, rocked back and relaxed all at once. “You are Heterodyne.”

“Ve _said_ ,” Oggie complained.

“Yes, I am.” The Heterodyne was starting to sound annoyed. Jenka didn’t seem bothered by it, but it still crawled along the back of Dimo’s spine and made his fur try to stand up under the weight of his clothes. “Who are _you_?”

“I am Jenka,” Jenka said as she pulled her mask back up. “I am de head of de Mechanicsburg Diplomatic Corps.”

The Heterodyne blinked twice, slowly, and looked from Jenka to Füst and back again. “This… is diplomacy?”

“ _This_ is herding eediots,” Jenka said.

“…I see,” the Heterodyne said.

Dimo heard footsteps from the opposite direction and turned automatically, sniffing, and then relaxed. Right. Maxim skidded into the clearing a few seconds later, stopped, and twisted around to check for attackers. None appeared so he relaxed, and returned his sword to its sheath. “Jenka! Guess vot ve deed!”

Jenka folded her arms and glared at him. “Got hanged.”

Maxim immediately looked guilty. “Vell… yez, bot…. Oggie, vhy hyu tell her dot!”

“Hy didn’t!”

“Did the circus come by?” the Heterodyne asked.

“Um… no.” Maxim shifted guiltily. “De cat is dere… Hy ken go beck?”

“They’ll probably feel safer with Krosp,” Zeetha said.

“So… Hy should go?” Maxim guessed.

“What? No, of course not,” Zeetha said.

“Bot if dey feel safe dey might run avay—”

Zeetha groaned. “They won’t run away. And even if they did, it wouldn’t be hard to catch them.”

“Stay here,” the Heterodyne said before Maxim could argue any more. She turned back to Jenka. “So you’re a jäger, and they’re jägers… how many jägers are around here anyway?”

“Just us, und some of de Wulfenbach ones,” Jenka said. She watched the Heterodyne carefully from behind her hat and mask. “Hyu vant jägers?”

“I… hm.” The Heterodyne frowned, eyebrows pulling together. “I guess that would make the Wastelands easier… wouldn’t the Baron notice, though?”

Jenka shrugged. “Maybe. It depends on how many hyu vant.”

“…Okay,” the Heterodyne said. She frowned for another minute, then asked, “how difficult would it be for us—just us here, now, plus Krosp—he’s a cat—to get to Mechanicsburg through the Wastelands? Zeetha’s a really good fighter, but I’m not, but I can make things if we find parts, and _probably_ I can get my death ray back from the circus.”

“…That depends on who is chasing hyu,” Jenka said.

“Well, _hopefully_ no one,” the Heterodyne said. “But _maybe_ the Empire.”

“Definitely the Empire,” Zeetha corrected. “Only they have to notice she’s still alive first, and we don’t know how long that will take.”

“…Hokay,” Jenka said. “If de Empire is chasing hyu, den hyu vant de army, because Klaus vill kill ennyting less.”

“I think the Baron would notice if the entire jäger army abandoned him,” Agatha said.

“Yez, so ve is not going to tell dem until hyu is in Mechanicsburg,” Jenka said. She gave Dimo, Oggie and Maxim each their very own unimpressed look. “Et least not _all_ of dem. Dese eediots can get hyu to Mechanicsburg, but it might not be _easy_.”

“Hey,” Oggie complained. “Ve iz goot et fightink!”

Dimo sort of agreed, but Heterodynes were not the sort of thing to take chances on, and he wasn’t used to being around anyone he needed to protect anymore (ever, really; he’d never been on a guard before, except the prisoner sort of guard which was a very different thing in that no one really cared if they died; it was just easier to let them transport themselves to the labs first).

“So… ve is mekink a guard?” Maxim asked.

“Vould take too long.” Jenka turned back toward Füst. “ _I_ will get de closest jägers dat can sneak avay. Hyu eediots keep her alive.”

“Diplomacy, really?” the Heterodyne repeated quietly. Oggie started snickering.

Jenka ignored them both, and jumped back onto Füst. “Hyu three.”

Oh, she was _serious_. Even for Jenka. Oggie stopped snickering, and all three focused on Jenka as the Heterodyne and Zeetha watched.

“Hyu is still detached.” Jenka glared, like she thought they’d forget that. “Dun go near de others. I vill send dem to hyu.”

“Bot… Heterodyne,” Oggie said.

“I _am_ a—” the Heterodyne started.

“Dot is not de question,” Jenka said, and they both stopped talking. “De jägers dot are vith de Baron vill be near de Baron’s people, if hyu go near dem hyu vill get caught. Und if dey see _hyu_ ,” she stared at the Heterodyne, who frowned back, “too many vill follow, und Klaus vill know vhy. Dere is nottink else ve vould leave for.”

The Heterodyne nodded slowly. “That makes sense.” She turned to Dimo, which he had _not_ been expecting and was _definitely_ not prepared for. “Do you know where Wulfenbach people would be? What towns we have to avoid?”

“Uh—ve ken schmell dem?” Dimo offered. But unless the Heterodyne invented something to control the direction of the wind they’d be just as likely to _be_ smelled and that was what they most needed to avoid….

“Enny town might have some,” Jenka said flatly. “He keeps armies in de large und de rebellious towns, and sends dem through de rest.”

The Heterodyne was frowning again, eyebrows pulling together in thought. “ _That_ will make things harder…. No towns….”

“How long will it take to get to Mechanicsburg?” Zeetha asked. “Assuming we walk most of every day.”

…How fast did humans walk? How fast did cats walk? Did Zeetha mean one of them would be carrying the cat? Dimo looked for Jenka, but she was staring back at Zeetha with an equally blank expression.

“…Three months?” Maxim guessed after a few seconds. “Mebbe?”

“Well, we’re going to need to go into _some_ towns then,” Zeetha said. “I don’t know about you three but Agatha and I can’t just eat meat for that long, and I haven’t seen any of the edible plants I can recognize anywhere in Europa.”

“I can recognize a _few_ ,” the Heterodyne said. “But probably not enough. And we’ll need warmer clothes.”

“Ve ken get tings from farms,” Dimo said. It would probably be safer; there were still people of course, but not as many as in an actual town, and the Baron would be less likely to hear anything from them. And they’d taken things from farms plenty of times, and Dimo couldn’t imagine that the other detached jägers would have avoided doing the same, so it wouldn’t be unusual if anyone saw them and reported it.

The Heterodyne eyed him skeptically, and Dimo reminded himself not to cringe. “Do you mean ‘steal’?”

“…Yez.” They _could_ buy things, but that _would_ be unusual. Dimo wasn’t sure whether a jäger walking up to a farm door and asking to buy plants to eat or a human girl walking out of the Wastelands and doing the same would be stranger, but either one would probably turn into rumors. But if that was what the Heterodyne wanted to do… urgh, he didn’t like this.

“If hyu dun steal tings,” Jenka said, “how vill hyu disguise hyuself so Klaus dun hear about hyu?”

The Heterodyne opened her mouth, closed it, paused, and thought for a few seconds before responding. “…I’m not sure.”

“Do hyu haff money vit hyu?” Jenka asked.

“A little….”

Jenka folded her arms and waited.

The Heterodyne folded her arms and frowned back. “Stealing hurts people though, I don’t want to take something they need.”

“If we’re near a large town I can sneak in and buy things,” Zeetha said.

Jenka sighed. “I vill tell de jägers I send to bring money too.”

The Heterodyne nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

Jenka nodded back like she would have bowed, if she’d been standing. “Is dere ennyting else hyu need?”

The Heterodyne shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Then I go.” Jenka patted Füst and the bear snorted, turned slowly, and then ran.

“…I didn’t know bears were that fast,” the Heterodyne said. “I mean, that was a bear, right?”

“Oh, yah, vos Füst!” Oggie said. “Iz Jenka’s bear.”

“Is it… common for jägers to have bears?” the Heterodyne asked. She sounded intimidated.

Maxim seemed not to have noticed. “No, Hy tink dot iz chust Jenka.”

“Vell,” Oggie said, “dere iz Dana….”

“ _Dana_ dun haff a _bear_ ,” Maxim said, as if it were the most terrifying fate that could befall the world.

Oggie was grinning. “Vell, she hed de hoctopus.”

“Dun hyu say _ennyting_ about de var hoctopus,” Maxim said. “Hy em tryink to _forget_ de var hoctopus.”

“De var hoctopus dot tried to eat hyu ha—” Oggie broke off, cackling as he jumped out of the way of Maxim’s attempt to punch him.

“War octopus?” Zeetha asked.

“Iz not eenteresting et all—”

“Maxim almost lost hiz hat!” Oggie interrupted, gleeful. Maxim tackled him.

Dimo’s attention was drawn away from the fight when he heard the Heterodyne laugh. It was quiet, and brief; she was watching the fight with a bemused expression, like she didn’t know quite what to do with them.

But she didn’t look angry, or irritated, or like she’d mind having to figure out what to do with them at all. She actually almost looked fond. They had a Heterodyne, and she might even like them, and she was going to Mechanicsburg.

And also, Dimo was missing the fun. “Hoy, Maxim!”

Maxim and Oggie paused, side by side in the dirt, Maxim’s hand on Oggie’s horn to drag him away and Oggie’s fist in Maxim’s face. “Vot?” Maxim asked.

“Deen’t hyu agree to ride de var hoctopus?”

“Hy sed no tokking about de var hoctopus!” Maxim rolled away from Oggie, but must not have noticed that Oggie was laying on his cape, because he flailed in surprise when he reached the end of it. Oggie snickered.

“Hyu told os about de var hoctopus!” Maxim had been very, very drunk when he’d told them, and Dimo had taken it as a lesson to see what he could get out of Maxim any time he was drunk. Nothing yet had matched the war octopus story, sadly.

Maxim managed to get himself free of Oggie, and leapt at Dimo. “No more var hoctopus!”

Dimo found himself laughing as he skipped to the side, and tried to trip Maxim as he went past. Instead Maxim jumped over his foot and tried to punch him from much closer. Dimo didn’t have time to dodge, so he took that one and punched back. “Bot iz hyu best schtory!”

The Heterodyne was laughing again. Zeetha was laughing too, even louder, and watching the fight like she might consider joining in. Ooh, nice; that would be fun.

Dimo dodged Maxim’s next punch, and jumped back as Oggie came in from behind him to punch Maxim. Maxim still managed to yell “iz de _vorst_ schtory!” as he stumbled back.

Probably because he had it memorized. They went through this fight a lot when they were bored.

Oh, hey, they could go over it more too! Dimo bet that most of the other jägers had never heard the story, telling them would be a _perfect_ way to start a fight with Maxim once they were back in Mechanicsburg.

Which they would be. Wow. They would actually get to go home.

Dimo hadn’t ever dared to hope for that.

(Then Maxim punched him in the face.)


End file.
